#and it seems well-suited to explore this character

[daydreamerdrew]

Iron Man (1968) #17

[puppyeared]

for like 3 weeks i was wondering why i was sleeping so much and felt listless. and just now I managed to email 3 people and responded to a month old message in the span of an hour because I got back to TAKING MY FUCKIN MEDS..........

[deedeeznoots]

The Deep Woods

➺ Update: If you enjoy this story, please feel free to also read some extra headcanons that delve into your life with Sukuna in the woods during the story as well as after the story takes place!

➺ Characters: Ryomen Sukuna, Fem!Reader 

➺ Word Count: 9.6k

➺ Genre: Slow Burn, Smut, Fluff

➺ Content: Fairy Tale!AU, True Form!Sukuna, Princess!Reader, MDNI, Arranged Marriage (not to Sukuna), Abusive Family (not super heavy though just average royal family bullshit), Swearing, Double Packed Sukuna, Oral (M!Recieving), Teasing, Begging, PiV, Unprotected Sex, Creampie, Stomach Mouth used so Oral (Fem!Recieving), Reader Stabs Someone

➺ A/N: This is the perfect time to confess that the reason I started watching JJK was because of all the Disney Princess ships that were going around and I'm not ashamed at all, those ships were unironically cute. 

➺ Synopsis:  Far beyond the kingdom walls in the darkest parts of the forest, there’s said to be a monstrous beast with two faces and four arms. As the only princess in the kingdom, you ignore these rumors and explore among the trees anyways. Unfortunately, it seems curiosity got the best of you, and you come face to face with this exact beast. Though… after meeting him, you begin to question who the true monsters of the kingdom actually are. 

Click. Clack. Click. Clack.

Your footsteps can be heard echoing throughout the castle walls as you walk on the decorated marble floor. You take a moment to take in your surroundings. Beautiful pieces of art and architecture surround you as you walk through the place you call home. Despite living in the castle your whole life, you always found something new when you walked around. This time, you notice the tiny angels at the top of the pillars, seemingly staring down at you. Were those always there? You thought. It didn’t matter, but it was interesting to take note of. You had to take note of these things if you didn’t want to go insane. It was a good thing the castle was so large and had all of these tiny details, otherwise you would have put up more of a fight to leave than you already do. Sometimes though, you just wished your company wasn’t so terrible.

Taking a deep breath, you open the heavy doors leading to the dinner room. There, you’re met with two awfully familiar faces. 

“Father… Mother…” you say softly, bowing as you enter the room.

“You’re late” your mother curtly states. You look down half-apologetically, “I’m sorry” you mumble. 

She isn’t finished. “Your hair is disheveled as well, did you think this was the proper way to greet us?”. Of course, you haven’t seen either of your parents for the entire day, and during the small window of time when you did see each other, it’s surrounded with criticism. If it wasn’t your hair, it was your clothing, and if not that, it was the way you walked or talked. You’d be more angry about it if you weren’t so used to it. Nowadays, you simply pull up a chair at the comically large dining table where your family sat and quietly eat your food. Your father–the King– would follow suit. Either looking down at his food, or around the castle, or speaking with your mother. He did everything but look you in the eyes. In some ways he was worse than your mother. At least your mother criticized things in your control. Yet, your father’s distaste of you seemed to stem from nothing more than the cardinal sin you committed of being a woman. Your parents have no other children, so it seemed that your very existence continued to be a reminder of their failures– no, your failure to bring an heir to the throne. 

You finish eating your food, but it’s not over yet, because unlike previous dinners, you were on a mission this evening. Setting down your fork to grab their attention, you look at them both and ask “I’d like permission to go to the village”. 

Both of your parents simply stood in silence before laughing. In fact, this was probably the happiest you’ve seen them. “Oh please, what could you possibly get from the village?” your mother questions you, still with a stupid smile on her face. Trying to hide your offense, you straighten your back “I’d just like to see what’s outside of this castle”. 

Realizing you’re serious, your parents stop their laughs, and their faces contort into one of anger. “Don’t put such things in your head,” your mother says “There’s nothing outside of this castle that is of interest to you, a different Princess would already know that”. What she really means is a better Princess would know that. You already knew that they probably wouldn’t agree, but you were unable to stop yourself from wanting to put up a fight anyways. Irritated, you stood up from your chair “Please just– let me see what’s out there, one hour tops, and I’ll never ask again”. 

In anger, your mother abruptly stood up as well and said “Absolutely not. Who knows what the people may do if they find a Princess near their filthy surroundings. Especially those peasant men who could–” 

“You know what. Never mind” you begin to walk away, turning your back on your mother. She didn’t like this very much, “How dare you turn your back on the Queen! Come back here you damn woman” she yells out, but you’re already at the door. You push the door open and slam it closed behind you as you make it outside the dining room. There, you find your Lady in Waiting next to the door, listening into the conversation. Realizing that you caught her, she stood in stock. You simply looked at her before scoffing and turning away to go back to your room, and she scurried trying to follow behind you. 

As you two are walking, she begins to speak up. “You know Princess, maybe it’s for the best that you don’t go outside” she takes a short breath, tired from having to chase after you. “There really isn’t anything in the village that would be of interest to a noblewoman such as yourself” she laughs, but you simply ignore her and keep moving, walking even faster this time, to her dismay. She wasn’t getting to you, but she kept trying anyway, “Also…I’ve heard about a beast roaming the forest near the village. The people say he’s almost 9 feet tall, and has four arms! Isn’t that terrifying?” Now that made you stop, and you turned around to look at her. Yes! She thought, had she gotten through to you? 

“Don’t be stupid” is all you say before you make it to your room and abruptly close the door, leaving her outside. 

In your room, you peek through the large window showing the outside world. There, you’re also able to see the forest that covers the perimeter of the Kingdom. A 9 foot tall beast huh? You thought, oh to be able to see that. Maybe it was stupid to wish for such a thing, but you would be willing to see anything so long as it was outside the castle. You weren’t blind to your privilege, of course it probably wasn’t going to be the stellar experience you expected, but at least you would know, that would be more than enough for you. 

Still, it didn’t matter what you thought because you probably would be staying in this same castle every day for your entire life regardless of your thoughts about it. Turning back to look outside one last time, you walk to your bed and flop down, dozing off to sleep. 

The morning rays of sun stir you awake and nearly blind you as you open your eyes. Somewhat groggy, you slowly get washed and dressed as you make your way to the garden for breakfast. The gardens were the closest to the outside world you could ever get, and as such they quickly became your favorite place to spend your day. You say hello to some of the gardeners as you make your way to the gazebo where your breakfast is already prepared. Your mouth waters as you see the combination of scones and fruit laid out for your breakfast. You get lost in thought as you eat, thinking about how you’ll spend your time for the day.

Your thoughts get disturbed when your Lady in Waiting comes to greet you. You look at her, about to apologize for your behavior last night when she begins to speak “Your Highness,” she lightly bows, “The King and Queen have asked to meet you after breakfast, they say it’s important”. As she raises her head, you ask her what it might be about. Your parents didn’t usually ask to meet with you outside of dinner. You thought for a moment, hopefully this wasn’t about what happened last night. When she tells you that she isn’t sure what the meeting is for, you simply nod and tell her you’ll be there soon. 

Once she leaves, you finish up breakfast and make your way to the throne room. This was the place your parents spent most of their time, and where they held their endless gatherings and meetings. As such, you made it a point to avoid the place outside of times where they specifically ask for you such as this one. 

When you make it inside the throne room, you walk to your parents and give them a bow “Your Majesties” you say, greeting them. Your parents don’t waste any time, and get right to the chase. “We have good news” your father starts. “You’re to be married” he says, gleeful, you on the other hand were anything but. Slowly standing up from your kneeling position, you utter a small “What?”, not fully comprehending what’s coming out of his mouth. “It really should have happened before” your mother begins, “You have been more than old enough for a long time” she scoffs. “Wait!” you yell out suddenly, “I’m not getting married” you say, mostly out of shock at the revelation. 

Your mother sighs, not hiding her disappointment. “How many times do we have to say that it’s your royal duty to provide this family with an heir” she lectures. You simply look down. Damn it, you think, you really didn’t want to do this, but you suppose you had no choice, so you ask, “Who is it?”. This confuses your parents and they look to each other in confusion, so you clarify, “Who am I getting married to”. The fact that you have shown the signs of being willing (or at the very least, compliant), nearly makes your mother jump up with glee. Your father says “This young Prince in the neighboring Kingdom, his father has lots of good things to say–”

“What about you guys?” you ask. It wasn’t that you particularly trusted their judgment, but you trusted them more than some other King who most definitely had a conflict of interest, “What do you guys think of him?”. This makes your parents pause for a moment before your mother goes, “Well… we haven’t quite met him yet”. 

Now, you weren’t very particular about who you were going to marry. You knew it was going to come eventually due to the nature of your family, but this made you angry. To not even know who they were marrying you off to? Have they truly stooped to this kind of stupidity? “So you don’t even know who he is and you want me to marry him?” you question, now somewhat aggressively. 

“We can take care of all that later my dear–” your mother starts again, but you aren’t having any of it “No! Getting married to someone I don’t know is bad enough but someone you guys don’t even know? That’s just absurd!” you yell out, which makes your father angry. “What’s absurd is not having an heir to the throne!” he yells out, his voice booming throughout the throne room. “You are to be married to this man regardless of your personal feelings on the matter” he yells out again. You can’t look at him. You can’t look at either of them. Your brain is starting to hurt and you can’t do anything. So you take one last look at them before silently leaving the throne room. 

Making it back to your bedroom, you spend the rest of the day looking out your window, watching as the sun sets and the moon shows its full glory. Thankfully, no one bothers you for the rest of the day, but you still have a pounding headache from the conversation. Various thoughts fill your head, from I can’t believe they would do this to I don’t think marriage would be that bad, right? All the way back to I shouldn’t even have to question whether it would be bad or not. You eventually decide that you need to clear your head and get some fresh air. Fresh air outside of this damn castle.

Looking out the window, your eyes focus on the forest ahead. The luscious green leaves sway from side to side as you look out at them, as if to call you towards them. Surely, it would be nice to walk through those woods. 

What? No! That’s a stupid decision, you could get lost. Or worse, killed.

…

Well… dead people can’t get married off to strangers.

That thought in mind, you grab a cloak from your closet and open up your window. The cold breeze of the night hits your face as you look out toward the forest, toward freedom… at least for a little while, that is. The only issue that stands in your way is how to get down. Looking down at the ground from your window, you definitely wouldn’t be able to jump without dying or getting injured. Not liking either of those options, you look around your room for anything that might help when you eye a pile of blankets in the corner of your room. Perfect. 

Man, these blankets are long as hell you think as you tie the pieces of fabric together. Once you finish, you securely tie one end to your bed frame and bring the other end out the window. The end of the makeshift rope hits the floor, and you have a mini celebration of your success. 

Feet hitting the ground, you’re able to slip past the guards and make your way out of the castle walls. You aren’t scared, far from it. For the first time in your life, you’re free. You’re giddy for a while and that joy only grows as you get further and further away from the castle. You’re finally able to take a breath, even if only for a mere few hours in the night.

There are no lights in the forest, and you didn’t bring a candle with you, so you only had the full moon to guide you. This was alright though, and you bathed in the moonlight for a while, being at peace. 

Your head is finally clear, and you’re able to stay in meditative thought as you walk through the woods.

Then, you hear a growl. 

You snap out of your thoughts and turn to the direction where the growl was heard. 

You hear another growl behind you. 

Then another. 

It’s a pack of wolves. 

And they’re surrounding you. 

You’re able to see their faces as they step into the moonlight out of the shadows. Their hungry eyes showing you that they do not intend to free you. The beasts give you no path of escape as they inch closer and closer to you. You had no other choice, you were going to be their dinner. Knowing your situation, you simply crouch down and close your eyes. Hopefully, it’ll be a quick death you think as you hear their excited growls and howls around you. 

One of the wolves prepares to lunge at you, but just as it’s about to, another force tackles the animal. 

“Huh?” you audibly say as you slowly open your eyes. When you look around yourself again, there are no more wolves to be seen, all of them taken away by a mysterious force. You are frozen in place. What in the world just happened? 

You can’t think for long though, as you realize…You sense someone else’s presence. 

You slowly turn around to find a large beast in the distance. No, that’s no beast, that’s a man. Except… Why does he have four arms? 

You think back to your conversation with your Lady in Waiting the other day. 

Shit. 

He’s slowly inching toward you. 

Shit. Shit. Shit. 

The better part of your brain knows to run, but you remain crouched and unmoving, frozen in fear. Eventually, he stands in front of you, looking down at your small form. 

They say he’s 9 feet, huh? You weren’t fully sure if that was correct, but he definitely looked like it from the way he was hovering above you. 

This feeling. It’s pure fear. You weren’t even this afraid when surrounded by the wolves, whom you were fully expecting to eat you. But this, you aren’t even able to breathe. Hell, you can’t breathe, you don’t know what’s come over you. He did save you, right? Maybe he isn’t so dangerous. Though, maybe he’s simply saving you for himself.

The clouds in the sky that were previously covering the moon now moved past, allowing the moonlight to shine on the man’s face, and you’re able to see four bright red eyes looking down at you. 

Not knowing what else to say, you just scream out “P-Please! Please don’t hurt me!”. It was different with the wolves, they wouldn’t have stopped no matter what you said. With this though… Was he more man than beast? Maybe he understood language? You were going to take all your chances, so you continued begging for your life. 

He seemed to have no reaction to your qualms, and simply slowly raised up his hand, getting ready to strike you. He took his time, as if you were so small that he didn’t even need to fully put in any effort to try to catch you. You didn’t give up, you continued to beg for your life until the last moment, hoping to get through to him. You kept on screaming. Kept on begging for your life until the very last moment when he swiftly brought his hand down to your face and–

You knocked out. 

“Princess! Oh Dear– Princess!” 

The voice of your Lady in Waiting wakes you up. Your head is throbbing with pain, and her frantic tone certainly wasn’t helping. 

“Huh?” you groan, you feel the grass from under you, you’re in front of the castle. You begin to slowly remember the events of the night before. Right… you left the castle, but how’d you get back here?

You suddenly remember the wolves and that man that saved you. You begin to frantically look around. Did he bring you back? 

Your Lady in Waiting makes it to you and begins to help you up. She decides to ask “Why are you on the floor?”. She’s picking the stray pieces of grass off of your hair and as you’re about to explain what happened, you realize how incriminating against you the story was. So, you simply tell her, “I’m not sure…”. 

Thankfully, she doesn’t question you any further, and simply goes “Let’s go give you a bath” as she takes your hand and leads you inside the castle. You turn around for a moment and look toward the forest. What the hell happened? 

The hot bath was more than needed to help clean off the dirt on your skin. The steam also helped to relax you as you organized your thoughts. You remember the four-armed man, and his bright red eyes. You think about how he saved you from death. You sounded ridiculous. Was that… a dream? You thought. No… it couldn’t be, it felt too real to merely be a dream. Though, if that was true, why did he save you from the wolves, and why did he bring you back to the castle? Ignoring all that, a man of that kind of build is something out of children’s books. 

It was going to bug you for the rest of your days, you had to go back to find out what on Earth happened last night. It would just be a short trip to confirm, you remembered most of your steps from that night. Plus, it was broad daylight now, surely there would be no predators roaming around.

If anyone heard you, it would sound like you had a death wish. Hell, you probably did… but there was something calling you to go back to investigate that man, and you’d be damned if you didn’t listen. 

Letting the water drip down your body as you leave the tub, you dry yourself off with a towel and pick out a dress. You went for something simple, as you needed to be able to move in case the worse happens and you get attacked by another animal. Or worse, if your new “friend” turned out to not be so friendly after all. 

You’re able to sneak your way through the guards again, and it was actually much easier this time. Turns out, your parents were away from the castle, meaning not as many guards stuck around to keep watch. 

“If I knew it was going to be this easy to leave, I would have snuck out before” You thought out loud in a quiet whisper. 

You find your way back to the forest and try your best to follow the path you remember going on the night before. You walk for a while before you see something of interest. 

Red blood stains paint the dirt coupled with scratch marks, no doubt from wolves. You look around your surroundings. While brighter now, they definitely looked familiar. There was no doubt, this was the place where your life nearly ended. 

So it wasn’t a dream. In your heart you already knew that, of course, the extra confirmation definitely helped. 

You think about your savior. Surely, it wouldn’t hurt to look for him, right? You look around once again, as if he would be standing in the same spot. You start to walk down the path further into the forest. You should be able to run into him eventually, right? Wait, why were you even looking for him? 

Against your better judgment, you call out to the stranger, “Um… excuse me sir but I just wanted to thank you for saving me last night”. Nothing. “If you can hear me please come out, I promise I mean peace”. Still nothing. 

After what felt like walking for hours, you nearly give up and decide to cut your losses and go home. That is, until you see a stone figure in the distance. Looking closer, you realize it’s a well. Curious, you walk towards it. Your fingers touch the rough stone of the abandoned well, and you wonder about the last time it was used. You decide to sit for a while and ponder near the spot. You think again about your marriage, and slowly begin to accept the reality of the situation. Hopefully, in the best case scenario, the Prince isn’t so bad. Hell, you’d accept halfway bearable. At least now, you know that when times get rough you’re able to go to the forest to think. 

You ponder a bit more and as you look down at the well, various things cross your mind. Whether they were good or bad, it didn’t matter to you. You were simply allowing your mind to roam wherever it saw fit. You were officially lost in thought. In fact, you were so lost in thought, that you didn’t even notice the giant form standing just behind you…

“Are you stupid?” You hear a gruff voice coming from behind you. 

Shocked, you forget that you’re near a well and jump up, screaming whilst you flail your arms out. This causes you to lose your balance and you fall into the well, causing you to scream even louder. You brace for your fall but it never comes. Instead, you find yourself caught between four large arms. 

“‘Tch, idiot” you hear, though you’re just glad that you’re alive. You’re brought back down to the glorious land, and you’re able to look up at the man in front of you. Looking at him, you see the obvious signs of your previous savior. The iconic four arms and four bright red eyes. Though, now that he’s in broad daylight, you notice some more things. Like the markings on his arms, his slicked back pink hair and a large mouth directly where his stomach is. Forget about children’s books, this man was unequivocally a monster. Though, you couldn’t help but think about how handsome he looked despite this. A stoic expression painted his face, despite showing clear annoyance toward your antics. Yes, handsome was the word to describe him. 

“Don’t stare. It’s weird” he says.

Then again, maybe you simply haven’t met many men. 

You’re about to respond with a comment of your own, when you feel a sharp sting on your leg. Wincing, you look down and you see blood trickling down your thigh. You must have gotten scratched while falling down the well. 

“Ow…” you say quietly, lifting up your dress. The man heard your pains, but didn’t pay it much mind. Rolling his eyes, he simply turned around to another side of the woods and said “You’ll live”. 

“Wait!” you reach out, grabbing at his clothes. This annoyed the man and he attempted to pull your hand away, you don’t budge though. “It hurts!” you yell out at him. He continues to try to get your hand off of him, and he yells out, “Not my problem!”. Finally, he’s free from your hand and pushes you away, causing you to fall backwards. “Owww…” you say, again. Today was certainly not your lucky day.

He’s about to walk away from you when he turns around for a second. Looking at you, he saw your pathetic display, covered in dirt, crouching down afraid to touch your minor cut. It would be funny if it wasn’t so sad. Groaning, he walks toward you and picks you up, easily carrying you over his shoulder. “Hey what are you–” 

“Quiet.” he says, “Don’t make me regret this, brat”. You do as he says. You weren’t afraid of him anymore. How could you be? If he wanted to kill you, he had several chances to do so. Hell, there were multiple instances when nature nearly did the job for him. So you decide to trust him as he carries you through an unknown part of the forest. 

He places you down inside an open cave. Based on the various items around, you assume it’s where he lives. You look around and see makeshift weapons and pieces of cloth sprawled about in the area. It definitely could be better, but it was pretty good for someone who lived in the wild. 

You see him as he takes one of the clean pieces of cloth and pats it on your leg. It stung like hell every time he padded the white cloth onto your skin, but he didn’t seem to care much about your tiny reactions. After a bit you both settle into a quiet, almost intimate feeling as he caresses your thigh, trying to clean the blood off your leg. You were used to getting taken care of, but this, this felt different. 

You take your chance to speak. “Thank you, again…” you say. 

He doesn’t say anything back, only muttering a soft “Whatever” to himself as he continues patting the area.

You continue to try to initiate small talk, saying things like “So… this is your house, how nice” and “The woods are lovely aren’t they?”. This doesn’t earn much of a reaction from him, and it seems that the small smidge of a reaction that you do see, is one of annoyance. You decide to give up, but not before asking him one more question. 

“What’s your name?” you ask. 

He stops for a bit, hesitating, and you assume that he won’t answer, when he says “Ryomen”. 

Pleasantly surprised that he actually answered you, you excitedly ask “Ryomen what?” with a smile. 

He gives a short groan in annoyance and mumbles “Ryomen Sukuna” as he rolls his eyes, still trying to focus on padding down your wound. You no longer mind the pain, instead you’re happy that you’re able to get him to open up. 

“That’s a nice name” you compliment him, and he just gives a low hum in response. 

He finishes patching you up and begins to walk away as he stands, “You’re a big girl, now scram” he tries to be intimidating, though it no longer works on you. You thank him profusely and it seems to do nothing but make him more annoyed as he focuses on anything else but you. 

“Oh I have one more question!” you say as you stand up from your spot. 

“‘Course you do…” he says, you take this as an invitation to keep talking, and you ask him the one question that’s been bugging your mind, “How did you know I lived in the castle?” 

He simply looked at you and gave you a blank stare and said, “You’re asking me that when you go out dressed like… that? It’s obvious”. He looks you up and down as he says the words, causing you to look down at your choice of wear. Oh yeah… of course, you couldn’t hide it if you tried. Though, it at least helped bring you home. Getting your answer, you simply walk away, not wanting to press him further. 

His peace doesn’t last long, however, as you come back. Then, you come back again, and again, and again. 

It started with you bringing a basket of food to him. Something simple, such as some fruits. “I wanted to give you this to thank you for all you’ve done” you said. When you offered him the basket he took the food and left, planning to leave you alone. He didn’t even say a word to you, let alone a thank you. Somewhat offended, you yelled out a “Wait!”, which caused him to turn around. “I thought… we would be eating together” you said, looking down at the floor.

He stopped for a moment before sitting down, grumbling as he took an apple and bit on it. Well… bit is an understatement, he absolutely ravaged the apple, leaving not even the core. 

“You… you eat the core?” you ask him, genuinely concerned for what it might do to his health. 

He just looked at you, chewing on a seed, and said “I don’t waste food” before going back to abusing the rest of the fruits on the basket, all while you stay content with your single bunch of grapes. 

Outside of that short conversation, you two don’t speak to each other. When he finished eating, Sukuna got up and left, not even uttering a single goodbye. However, this was far from the last time you two spoke. 

Every day, you brought him food from the castle. Every day, you insisted that he sit with you to eat it. You weren’t exactly sure why you did all this, maybe it was an excuse to get away from the castle, or maybe you were simply intrigued by the man you visited. You two hardly ever spoke at first, how could you? Sukuna hated your presence, not for any particular reason, he just wasn’t very fond of humans. However, he loved food more than he hated you, so he never complained and was never outright malicious. 

One time though, after a few weeks of you two meeting, he snapped and said, “Stop coming here, brat”. You looked up at him, the bread you brought in hand, and gave him a simple “No”. This response caused him to growl under his teeth, but he didn’t push it. He didn’t want to admit it, but he started to enjoy being around you. It sucked being alone, and most people didn’t want to go near him. Plus, the small number of people who were brave enough to face him were in it to kill him, so he was willing to accept having you around, as simple minded as you were. Finishing the food, he got up as usual, except this time he said “You’re lucky this food is good”, before walking away. 

That small interaction seemed to open the doors for you two to get closer. Eventually, you two began speaking as you ate. Mostly small talk, sometimes you’d touch on your arranged marriage, but it was a topic you wanted to avoid as much as possible. Thankfully, he didn’t seem to mind brushing over it. 

Even after you two ate, you continued to speak to each other. Mostly walking around the forest, you would ask him about the various plants and wildlife. Something that he seemed highly knowledgeable about, always diligently explaining everything around the forest to you. 

You two sometimes met at night as well. You would steal some food from dinner (something that allowed you to actually look forward to the occasion) and bring it for the two of you to have. While eating, you would look up at the stars together, basking in the light they give off. 

“I can feel you staring at me” you say, looking at him through the side of your eye. He doesn’t let up, in fact, he grows more confident, turning his entire body around to face you. “Sorry, I just couldn’t help but notice something about your face”. You turn around to face him, curious about what he might say. “I swear to God if you say something stupid I will personally poke one of your eyes out–” 

“Your eyes shine more than the stars do,” he cuts you off. You look at him, his face is as calm as it usually is, he’s serious. You aren’t sure what to say, and you stutter around your words, until you hear a hearty laugh and Sukuna’s face scrunched up in a chuckle “Oh man– I can’t believe that corny ass line got you… you really do need to go outside more” he says as he laughs some more, crossing his four arms over his head. Your face is flushed and red from embarrassment and you tackle the man “Ryomen Sukuna!” you yell out, “That’s it, I’m poking your eyes out!”. Sukuna is able to fight you off with his superior strength, and when your embarrassment cools down, you’re able to have a bit of a laugh as well. 

“Well lookie here…” Sukuna says, looking down at you as you struggle being tangled up between some long plants. “Ain’t this a sight to see… so early in the morning too” he chuckles. The food you brought him for the day now on the floor, you continue struggling before you yell out “Ryomen stop staring like a weirdo and come help me!”. He laughs again and goes “I don’t know… there’s no more food so I can just leave you here” he pretends to turn around to leave you. You know he isn’t being fully serious, but in frustration you swing around and begin yelling his name some more. “Okay fine, fine…” he says, as he cuts the plants with his nails “Waitwaitwaitwait—” is all you say before you fall to the floor. It wasn’t a huge fall, but it was enough to hurt. “Ow…” you say, your arms absorbing most of the fall, and thus, most of the pain. Sukuna keeps laughing, “Oops…Hahahaha” he smiles as you stare daggers at him. 

You’re able to get up on your own and pat most of the dirt away. “You know man I’m not really in the mood today” you say as you try your best to look a little more proper. “Oh? What’s wrong?” he asks, still half-joking based on his tone. Still, you answer seriously “I’m meeting my husband today… my family’s holding some stupid party”. You say it like it isn’t a big deal, but Sukuna can read in your face that the thought seriously upsets you, so he lightens up a bit. 

He pats you on the head with one of his hands and goes “Come on… it’s about time I give you some food, yeah? Let’s go hunting”. He begins running, slow enough for you to follow, but fast enough for you to have to catch up with him. You mindlessly follow him before going “Wait… hunting? Wait, I don't wanna– RYOMEN!”. 

Ballroom music plays as you stand amongst the crowd of people, trying your best to keep up appearances. This was technically your engagement party, but with how far you and your future husband seem to be from each other, no one would be able to guess. That, and your “fiancé” flirting with every woman he could lay his eyes upon. Every woman but you, of course. You didn’t miss the way his face dropped the moment he laid his eyes on you. You didn’t mind this, as you weren’t too pleased with his appearance either. Still, the least he could do is suck it up and take it for the day the way you were expected to. Alas, it seems his favorite course of action for the night was to humiliate you by having a public display of his flirtation before you two are even married.

You try to use this to your advantage, “Look at him, mother…” you say to the woman standing next to you, she’s giving out her brightest and fakest smiles to all the guests “You can’t possibly expect me to marry him” you tell her. “You can and will…” your mother says through smiling teeth, she isn’t done though, she never is “If you took better care of yourself, maybe his behavior would be different” she drops her act for a moment, before going back to greeting guests. 

You let out a sigh of sadness and anger, everything felt horrible. Suddenly, the dress you’re wearing is a tad too tight, the music feels a bit too loud, and there’s too many people. Your mother’s comments as she watches your future husband embarrass you doesn’t help either. You need to leave, and you need to leave fast. You somehow find a way to slip out of the party without many people noticing and try to make your way to the only place you felt safe– the forest. 

You somehow make it to Sukuna’s resting spot despite the way you’re dressed. Your feet have blisters all over from your shoes but that doesn’t matter. You’re finally safe here… 

Sukuna immediately notices you and is prepared with a joke, “Woah who let the–”

“Shut up” you cut him off. You knew his comments were mostly in pure fun, and you enjoyed them for the most part, but today was not one of those times. 

Sukuna understood this, and simmered down. “Bad day?” he asks, though he already knew the answer. 

Tears stinging your eyes, you simply look down at the floor and nod. Sukuna pats down a spot next to him and goes “Tell me about it”. 

You take the invitation, and tell him all about your woes. The full story of your forced marriage, the pressure to have an heir, the humiliation you felt as you saw the man you were publicly marrying flirt with as many women as he could right in front of everyone. You were like a river on a broken dam. 

Sukuna didn’t say anything until you were finished, and even once you were, all he said was “Man, what assholes”. It seemed like a mindless comment, but to hear someone else finally say it was enough for you. You two sat in silence for a while before Sukuna looked at you and went “You don’t deserve any of that, I’m sorry”. He was actually fully serious for once. You two locked eyes for a while, not saying a word. You took a while to study his face. You realized this while first meeting him, but it really hit you now. His ever calming facial expressions, the way his eyes looked at you, the way his hair was perfectly slicked back, it was without a doubt, he was devilishly handsome. 

You kissed him. You weren’t sure why. Maybe it was frustration from this terrible day and you weren’t thinking straight, or maybe, just maybe, it was something more. Sukuna seemed shocked from the sudden kiss, but he held no complaints as he kissed you back. Opening your mouth, both your tongues intertwined for some time… a long time, before both of you pulled back for air, with only the string of saliva connecting your two lips serving as proof of what you did. 

Forget not thinking straight, this was the clearest your mind had been for a while. You reach your hand out toward his groin, he knew what you were trying to ask him… but still, you go “Please?” as you rub him through the thin cloth. He’s hard. 

Thankfully, he keep you waiting, and he stood up as you got on your knees. Before he let you pull down his clothing though, he said “Don’t be too shocked at what you see, alright?”. You simply nod, not understanding what he meant at first. However, pulling down his thin robes, you came face to face with exactly what he meant as two, almost comically large, penises slap against your face. You stare at him wide-eyed for a moment before you fully digest what’s in front of you. It should’ve been obvious, really. He had twice as many of almost every feature on his body, why wouldn’t he have two cocks?

Fully composed now, you take your tongue and drag it across his bottom shaft, licking all the way up to the tip of his dick. You try your best to suck as far down as possible while also jerking off his top shaft to keep your attention at both. Sukuna seemed pretty happy with this treatment, as you hear various moans and groans from the man standing above you. You try your best to interchange your mouth between his two cocks, trying to find just the right spots for his pleasure. You’re able to get his cock even deeper down your throat with Sukuna’s help, as he brings his hand to your head and begins fucking your mouth.

“D-Damn… Hah… You learn this in the castle?” he laughs in between his moans. You glare up at him, though all you can really do is give him an angry groan with his dick stuffing your mouth. This doesn’t deter him however, as he feels your mouth’s vibrations throughout his cock. Still, he sees your angry face as you suck him off, so he smiles and says a small “Sorry… hehe” as he pulls your mouth off his dick. 

You pant for a while, saliva coating both your face and his dicks. He lets you rest for a bit but not before bending you over. “There we go,” he says, as he rips the fabric of your dress from your body. You don’t care though, you didn’t care for anything else anymore, you just needed him inside of you and you needed it quick. He aligns his bottom cock with your pussy, but he doesn’t move. You try to move back, but he keeps your hips still to stop your movement. “R-Ryomen… what are you doing?” you ask, halfway begging for him to just put it in. 

He chuckles for a bit before he tells you “I want you to beg for it” as he rubs his tip against your slick folds. 

Right. 

He might be horny right now, but he’s still the same asshole. 

You play along, willing to basically do anything to get him inside you. You go “P-Please?” in the softest voice you could. This wasn’t satisfactory for Sukuna, however, as he slaps you ass and says “You can do better than that! Come on– try harder”. 

You’re getting frustrated, and you had half a mind to force his dick inside yourself, but with his hands still on your hips, you just keep begging “Please please Ryomen, please put your dick inside of me…please pleas– ahh!” 

He slammed his full length inside of you all at once, shocking you as your body tries to quickly get used to having him inside of you. “Ryomen! That was mean!” you squirm out, looking at him from behind you. He looked back at you and went “Shh… I’m sorry, it’s okay though, yeah?” he smiles softly as he begins to slowly thrust in and out of you. “It doesn’t hurt too bad, right?” he asks you, and you nod in approval, silently asking him to go faster. Almost as if he could read your mind, his thrusts get faster, and he goes “Yeah… Let’s go give those assholes the heir they want so bad, yeah?” he laughs as he abuses your pussy with his dick. 

He flips you around after a while, and you’re able to face him as he fucks you. You looked down at where your genitals met and saw as the dick that wasn’t inside of you stood resting on top of your body, almost as a way to show how deep in you he was, as if you couldn’t already feel it. It also rubbed against your clit every so often as Sukuna continued thrusting. You began to jerk him off as he thrusted against you. In and out, in and out, you were in bliss, it felt perfect, it was absolutely perfect. 

Perfect. That was the word Sukuna kept repeating as he kept fucking you, almost as if he wasn’t absolutely ruining you. No man was going to ever match him, you knew this just by feeling him. Still, he kept on going on about how perfect you were “You and this perfect fuckin’ pussy, hah, it’s going to be the end of me” he says as his thrusts get sloppier and faster. He’s close. It’s okay though, you were as well. 

Both of your moans and skin slapping against skin are the only things that can be heard as you both came. Both of his cocks came simultaneously, with one spraying cum all over your body as the other coated your insides. You were unequivocally his now, but that was okay, everything was okay. You were too fucked out to care about anything anymore, the world seemed so small now that you felt this pleasure.

You're getting dizzy, and your vision slowly goes black as you pass out from exhaustion. 

When you came to, you found yourself back in your room wearing a nightgown. You don’t recall ever coming back, so he must have brought you back on his own and changed you. You would have thought it was all a hazy wet dream, but looking at your night stand, you saw the little bit of ripped fabric from last night’s dress. Definitely not a dream. 

“You’ve embarrassed us!” your mother’s yells boom throughout the throne room. Turns out, going missing at your own engagement party is a big no-no to a lot of people. Your mother goes on and on about how no one was able to find you, and how you seemed to vanish out of thin air. How guards looked everywhere throughout the castle to no avail until someone found you sleeping in your room. 

“Thankfully…” your mother sighs, “The Prince is willing to give you another chance, and is still going to marry you”. 

Your stomach boils with rage at this, they weren’t worried at all! They just cared about the marriage, once again. With all the might in your soul, you yell out a big “No!” toward your parents. This shocks the King and Queen, and the latter slowly walks toward you, going “No? What do you mean…no?”. 

You stutter for a bit, before you go, in the bravest voice you could, “I…I’m not going to marry him”. 

SLAP. 

Your mother strikes you across your face before she turns around, almost as if she’s too disgusted to even look at you. As if you said something so treacherous. She doesn’t say anything, but calls for the guards. As they grab at your arms she goes, “Make sure she doesn’t leave the room, use any force necessary”. This makes your eyes go wide. The marriage was one thing, but not being able to leave was another. “Wait–Wait no…” you yell out, struggling against the guards “Stop! Mom! Stop them! Wai–”.

The doors slowly close in your face as you see your mother walk back to her throne. You continue to try to struggle against the guards to no avail, they throw you into your room and slam the door shut. You attempt to climb down the window but you see the guards posted out there as well. They must have realized what was going on you thought.

You begin to sob. Your first thoughts are of Sukuna. What’s going to happen now? You think back to all your memories of the past few months together, how you felt happy. It wasn’t the fake, saturated, happiness you were used to in the castle, it was real, and you might never get the chance to feel it again. 

Weeks pass…though they feel more like years. You spend your days looking out the window toward the forest, you think of Ryomen and wonder how he must be. You think of your last day together, how you never even said goodbye. Every so often you see him in the distance, and you wave to each other, but even he notices the guards by your window, you see a faint sadness in his face. It was alright, these brief few seconds waving to each other was enough to keep you sane at least, and you needed it as your wedding day inched closer and closer. 

On your wedding day, you saw yourself in the mirror. You looked beautiful, wearing a gorgeous white dress and a tiara filled with what seems to be a thousand jewels. Though, it’s hard to truly look at yourself and not feel the least bit upset. The jewels… They looked like the stars. You remember the time you and Sukuna laid under those very same stars, and sadness once again paints your face. 

You dreaded this day, but now that it actually came, you don’t feel many feelings toward it. You only feel numb as you try to dissociate as much as possible. You simply try your best to get the day over with, holding out hope that after the day is over, your restrictions are lowered and you’re able to sneak out into the forest again.

Making your way to the altar, you face your husband. He looks bored as ever, clearly wanting to do this as much as you did. You were okay with this, this means that he wouldn’t bother trying to find out your whereabouts if you suddenly disappeared in random spurts. As the marriage ceremony began, you zoned out. As they go through the traditions, you’re simply thinking about all the things you’d do if you’re finally freed. That is, until you hear the head guard interrupt the ceremony. 

“Apologies for the intrusion, but my men and I have a special gift for the newly-wed royals…” as he says this, the gates open showing a group of guards, and they’re dragging… no. 

“Behold! The four-armed beast! Can you all believe he was sitting right by the castle… how stupid of him to believe he wouldn’t be caught by our men”. 

The audience gasps as Sukuna struggles against his chains, the two of you lock eyes. If he weren’t in such danger right now, you would run to him in an instant to hold him close, making sure to never let go. 

Looking at the Prince, the guard asks “How does the future King feel about slaying this monstrous beast?” 

Shit. Fuck. 

You needed to think fast, you had to somehow stop this from happening. The Prince accepts the offer with a sinister smile, and he reaches for his sword as Sukuna continues to struggle. In your panic, you grab the sword of one of the guards and stab the Prince directly in the chest.

Blood trickling down his chest… he looks at you, no… he glares at you. Everyone stops for a moment in shock, as if this was the last thing any of them ever expected to happen. Suddenly, someone yells “TREASON!” pointing at you, and guards begin to surround you. Taking advantage of the messy situation, Sukuna is able to break free from his chains and run to grab you. Fighting off guards, you and Sukuna run as fast as possible to get away from the crowd.  

You’re both somehow able to outrun the people, mostly thanks to Sukuna’s speed, but this doesn’t stop people from trying to chase you both. Looking behind you for a quick second, you see nothing but a crowd of people yelling with weapons. Wanting to get away at any cost, you followed Sukuna into the shadows of the forest. 

Despite making it to the forest, you two continued running as fast as you could to the opposite direction from the kingdom. Thankfully, Sukuna’s stamina seemingly never runs out, and he’s able to run far. You two only stop after what feels like hundreds of miles, and you aren’t able to hear any people nor see any outline of the kingdom. 

You’re not sure if it’s the adrenaline from running, or if it’s the fact that you two haven’t seen each other for weeks, but the first thing you two do when you stop is make out. The two of you haven’t even uttered a single word to each other yet, but that didn’t matter right now. All you needed was his touch, for him to fully mark you as his. 

He seamlessly ripped apart your wedding dress as he kissed you. The very same dress that served to show the ownership your future husband would have over you was now in pieces on the floor. 

He carefully dropped both of you down on that same floor as you both continued locking lips. Taking his own clothes off, he wrapped your legs around his hips as he aligned one of his cocks with your needy pussy. Wordlessly, he began thrusting against you like a man starved, and perhaps he was starved. He thought he was never going to see you again, now that he had you, he had no intentions of letting go.

You still had your tiara on, though not for long. As with every thrust of his hips the tiara slowly slipped away. Eventually, it fell off with a loud clunk on the floor. This didn’t deter either of you, though, nothing could deter the two of you at this point. 

You continued holding him tight while moaning and giving him sloppy kisses until at one point, you felt something wet rubbing against your clit. Confused, you look down and see his stomach mouth in its full glory, its long tongue flicking against your clit over and over, making a moaning mess out of you. You held Sukuna tighter, making sure to not abandon his other cock and kept jerking him off as he went in and out of you.

“I missed you” is the first thing he says to you in between the pants of exhaustion and pleasure. You moan at him to let him know you heard. Looking at your face, he notices tears coating the corners of your eyes. Still feeling him in your guts and your emotions all over the place, you try your best to choke out a sentence, “I— I thought you were going to die” you finally begin crying out, fully digesting the terrible situation you two were in just a few moments ago. 

“Shh…” Sukuna coos, holding you tight “I looked for you at your window every day, you saw that, right?” He asked you, and you nodded, holding him even tighter. 

“Every. Damn. Day” he says, thrusting in your pussy in between each word. “I couldn’t believe that fucker was going to be married to you” he scoffs, looking away for a moment before looking back at your face “Pissed me off”. Still lost in pleasure at the combination of his lower tongue and dick, you aren’t able to respond.

He doesn’t mind this though, as his thrusts simply get even faster and even more desperate. He’s close, and you were too. “You’re mine… only mine” he growls in your ear as he cums all over your body once again. You follow suit not far after, still the same mess you were before.

It was in this bliss that he said it, the words that you both already had at the tips of your tongues…

“I love you” Sukuna whispered into your ear. He whispered it so softly, in fact, that you might have missed it if you weren’t paying attention. You grab his face and cup his cheeks, looking at the gorgeous man in front of you, and with all the love in your heart, you say it back “I love you too”. 

He let out a sigh of relief at your words, as if he almost didn’t expect you to say them, and touched your lips with his own once again. “You’re mine” he repeats, and you had no intention of proving him wrong.

The next few hours are spent with the two of you cuddling on the forest floor together and giving each other sloppy kisses. You knew in your heart at that moment, holding Sukuna’s large body against your own, that you had no intention of ever going back to that cold and lonely castle, and Sukuna wasn’t going to let you go either, with his four muscular arms holding you against him as you both laid on the floor.  

Once you both cooled down, you looked down awkwardly at your naked body. Sukuna noticed and asked what was wrong. Looking down at your wedding dress, you go “Uhh… those were my only clothes”. Sukuna chuckles, and picked up a ripped up piece of fabric, tying it around you to make a new makeshift “dress”, “There ‘ya go, perfect” he pecks your lips as he gives you a toothy grin. You both simply laugh and you lean into his arm. 

“Well… what do we do now?” Sukuna asks you, he was willing to do anything that you wanted. Hell, he’d run thousands more miles to the edge of the Earth for you if you really asked him to. You think for a moment, before going “Well I can’t go back now… I’m probably charged with treason.. Haha”, you say half-jokingly, though you most definitely would be dead if you went back. 

So… the two just kept walking, camping out in different spots of the forest. Thankfully, Sukuna had great survival skills when it came to this, and you turned out to be a quick learner when it came to having to live in the wild. 

Eventually, you two stumbled upon an old abandoned cottage, and were able to live there permanently after fixing it up a bit. At first, you two were worried at the prospect of people possibly coming around, but that fear disappeared as the days went on. You only had each other in these deep woods. Though, that was all either of you truly needed in this world. 

He was a monster. Though, at this point… you were probably one too. 

You never did find out what happened to your kingdom after you ran away. It no longer mattered though, as you were now finally free to live life on your own terms. 

There were no more duties to attend to, no Kings and Queens to please, no marriage to be forced into, all that was left to do was live Happily Ever After. 

–

A/N: I poured out my soul to this story so thank you so much for reading :,) 

[etirabys]

meandering post about reading Orson Scott Card again

I've been offline starting at 9pm every day (except once. I was drunk at karaoke and asked for anons at 8:30pm) for six weeks, with the result that in befuddled boredom two nights ago I picked up Orson Scott Card's Songmaster from the house bookshelf.

I read Ender's Game and three sequels when I was a teen thought the books were mid. Since those are OSC's best works I assumed he had nothing more interesting to offer me and didn't try more of him for fifteen years, but Songmaster was compelling enough that I immediately afterwards picked up The Memory of Earth, the first book of a pentalogy.

TMoE is extremely my jam: after humanity blows itself up on Earth, AIs monitor thriving human civilizations in the planets that survivors managed to escape to, and suppress any tech that enables large scale violence by exerting low key mind control via satellites. But forty million years pass, many of the satellites break down, and the AI needs help from humans to restore capabilities. Because as its control wanes, people are starting to e.g. conceive of airplanes or bombs again, and override the injunctions against entering military alliances more than two edges of connection away.

The AI is worshipped as a god all over the planet, but the fourteen year old protagonist that becomes one of the AI's agents tells the AI from the beginning that he'll break with it if its morality seems wrong to him. I like the fourteen year old – unlike Ender or Songmaster's protagonist (adult minds piloting ten year old bodies), he's a normal gifted kid who's unpopular 50% due to his ego and big mouth and 50% because he's socially inept and offends people even when he's trying to be nice.

Songmaster is also partly about a permanent solution to large-scale violence, albeit through one guy who establishes a monopoly on violence and sweeps in pax galactica. Both it and TMoE are preoccupied with the eradication of suffering from evil / human violence, which is closer to my resonant frequency than narratives about defeating particular people or ideologies. At the moment I can't think of any other book with such an insistent focus on the matter than T.H. White's The Once and Future King. It's hard to make a compelling story out of, and I don't think Songmaster really succeeds, but TMoE's premise is well suited to explore that. (I'm also enjoying the matriarchal culture where everyone is expected to have multiple serial-monogamous marriages.) After reading 70% of TMoE last night I wrote:

Usually when I read fiction there's a small part of me going, how can I use this as fodder for my own growth, how can I remix or improve or react against this, how do the author and I measure against each other? (If the quality and content are at an anti-sweet spot, the small part becomes quite large and I feel all teeth towards the author.) But on occasion I read something so close that the absence of that measuring-feeling is its own sensation – ego departs, or at least is split across two bodies. There's just amity and recognition

And it's pretty interesting to feel this way about Card for, well, the reasons.

(If you're familiar with Card drama none of the following will be new to you; I'm coming to it fresh so the rest of this post is me going "uh... wow")

I vaguely knew he was a homophobic Mormon who'd gotten into fights about gay stuff, but I couldn't tell from the Ender books I read. But in Songmaster his issues spring off the page in such a weird way. Every fifth Goodreads review of this book is "Card, u gay?" because, well,

(One review, possibly from a fellow Mormon, that went "Card, it's so sinful of you to be this gay in your novel". Why did he write this book that would predictably make everyone mad...)

it's full of gay male desire. The protagonist (Ansset) is approximately a castrato and characters notice him sexually a lot. The first and only time Ansset has sex it's with a Kinsey 4-5 male character he loves, who's married to a woman but has fallen in love with Ansset. It turns out the drugs Ansset took to prolong his singing career painfully and only-kinda-figuratively explode your balls when you have your first orgasm and you'll never feel sexual desire again. (You'd think his loving teachers would have warned him of that, but, whatever, they didn't.) The other guy is literally castrated in punishment for inadvertently torturing a highly valuable castrato. It's pretty bald: GAY SEX IS ALMOST IRRESISTIBLY TEMPTING BUT YOU SHOULDN'T DO IT.

(Sidenote: both Ansset and the guy's wife are very close and have a "there's enough love to go around" attitude about the gay sex initially, before they go "wait Josif is a SERIAL MONOGAMIST... he can only love one person at a time... the moment he had the gay sex his marriage was destroyed". It's funny in a mildly stupid way that Card would set up this parable of homosexuality destroying lives and a marriage but almost everyone involved is peacefully ready to sail into an open marriage. I guess it makes sense if you want to say very clearly that THE GAY PART IS THE BAD PART)

which is fascinating to me, because... why would you tell on yourself like that

(81k also told me secondhand of an essay? interview? where Card openly says "we have to stand against legalizing gay marriage because everyone will get gay married and society will collapse", so that's informing my read of Songmaster as well)

I am pretty dang open about my personal life online but if I had a lot of feelings I thought were disgusting and immoral I would not write a novel dripping with those feelings before pointedly castrating the leads for them. Especially if it wasn't relevant to the actually highbrow themes of (checks notes) winning over your adversaries with kindness and never relinquishing your monopoly on violence. I would be so so so so embarrassed to let this go to print, it's so psychologically transparent, what was he thinking

(Well, I assume he's a very different person with different social incentives. For all I know, people in his church went "hey Orson we read your book and it's clear that you're gay but signaling strongly that you won't give into the gay feelings, we're here for you, it was really brave of you to publish this".)

[pokemon1oadvanced]

Thoughts on the live action one piece

Spoilers 😉

Yes, I binged all 8 episodes, and have work today and can’t see out my eyes but worth it.

I’ll try to keep it short.

Luffys character was immaculate. The way Inaki portrayed him and brought this man to life was so amazing to see. Oda really saw Luffy in him and he did not disappoint. The moves looked great, CGI was on point for a live action, and they really did break the curse.

Zoro’s character was beautiful. I love that he was more serious, and him throwing up the finger in his first scene?! I’m star struck. You can say what you want about the live action, but theres no denying this cast was perfect for these characters and the fight scenes were choreographed to the point where it looked so clean.

Nami 🥳 The emotion! The conflict! I absolutely love the way she had more action scenes and was more open with her care for the crew early on. Nami has always been my favourite character, and Emily did her justice.

I will be listening to her song on repeat.

Ussop! Ussop! Are you serious! Why do I love you in every reality! And Ussop and Kaya! The kiss! The scream I let out! I died😵‍💫 I wish he had more shooting scenes, but his true potential wasn’t seen until later in the anime so I can’t complain, cause season two Ussop is gonna pop off.

Sanji😳 First off, live action Sanji has a hold on me😮‍💨 Like what happened to the guy who couldn’t get any girls. Ngl, was keeping an eye out for the blonde at table 8, looking out for my competition👀 His kicks were so smooth and all, and I mean ALL, his fight scenes were perfect. Like how did they do this. You can see the care and effort he put into his character.

Buggy? I love our unhinged clown. His making a circus with trapped towns people. His CGI? Amazing. The little goof we were left with when they trapped his parts in the chest made me cackle!

The pacing of the show was done so well. I was worried that 8 episodes wouldn’t be enough (and I was right where’s season two I want Vivi), but the retelling was more then I hoped for. I will always love the anime more, as most of us know there’s not enough episodes in the series, but the live action did great in that respect. I did miss some of the characters they had to cut to make it flow better though. The ussop pirates live on in our hearts

Don’t get me wrong, there was some scenes I missed from the original show, like Zoro lifting Luffy’s cage, Nami burning her hands on Buggys cannon fuse, Nami stabbing Ussop. BUT, they wouldn’t have fit in this version of the show.

They did give us Zoro lifting the safe like he did Luffys cage which was cool. And Nami holding Ussops hand when Zoro was fighting, Nami showing up for the fight rather then leaving. I love her. Even though Nami didn’t get to show her care through the actions of saving Zoro or stabbing her own hand, she was still able to show those emtions through different actions. The hand holding with Ussop rather then the stabbing of her hand was so good to see. This version of Nami seemed more fragile in a way, so this suited her version well.

It was like watching One Piece for the first time all over again. I didn’t know what would happen. Getting more marines, and Garps relationship to Luffy being revealed so early in the series to cause tension within the crew *chef’s kiss* And Koby? ‘Be a good pirate.’? Like I love you? Not doing what Garp asked? Standing up for his beliefs? You are going to be a good Marine. You’ll be the greatest 💕

The relationships they explored?

First off Ussop and Kaya 😵 I love them so much. Them talking to the straw hats about their relationship was so cute, and Zoro saying it wasn’t his area of expertise 💅🏻✨ Jokes 👀

Nami being besties with Kaya😍 Her telling Kaya not to let someone tell her how to run her life, drawing connections to her own situation, telling Kaya not to be trapped. Her returning the treasure! I loved it so much. Ussop’s and Nami’s friendship has always been the one I cherished in the crew, and for Nami to support Kaya, and Ussop to see how Nami was good to his girl I feel will only strengthen their relationship.

Nami and Zoro besties? Didn’t know I could love them more.

Nami caring so much for Zoro after his fight with Mihawk showed her love for her new friends, and mirrored her care she had in the original series where she saved him from drowning at Arlong park. Even though we didn’t get the original scenes, they were supplemented with new scenes that held the same feelings.

Zosan- I mean Zoro and Sanji. The wings of the pirate king? I love their bickering in any universe it seems. The fish men fight was so good, them being unbothered with the guys trying to kill them as they fought with each other was so them. And Zoro licking his plate clean and saying Sanji’s food was okay? Not bad for a waiter huh?

And the most important pair. Captain and his first mate. I just loved how many times they reiterated that Zoro is Luffys right hand man 🥰 Luffy not stepping in the way of Zoros dream was beautiful, and his care afterwards reminded me of how he cared for Nami when she got sick in the original series. Asking Sanji to cook his favourite? So cute. He couldn’t decide if it was best for Zoro to eat or sleep or drink and him stressing for Zoro. All amazing. I’ve used amazing so many times but its just the word I need to explain it. Zoro waking up, Luffy engulfing him. I could go on and on.

Nami and Luffy? The amount of love I have for them. They were everything I wanted from them. The scene. THE scene. Beautiful.

I could go on and on about this show, but sadly I have work. Please show this version love, and don’t go into expecting the same series. It is different. It’s its own version and deserves its own category.

I love the cast! Thank you for making history with this adaptation! Xx

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

I don't know if this has already been asked, but what did you think of the Halloween event? Is it too early to ask? How did it compare with the other events?

Aaaaah, thank you for asking!! I was actually in the middle of writing my own "these are my thoughts" post even if no one specifically asked 😂 but I'm glad I can just reply to this ask with what I was cooking up~

***Warning: SPOILERS AHEAD!!*** ***Please also note: these are just my OWN thoughts and opinions! In sharing them, I do not mean to disparage those who think differently than me; I only mean to contribute to the discussion.***

I'll be quick and rip off the band-aid now: I liked this event about as much as I did Stage in Playful Land, maybe a little better than Playful Land if I think about it. If you know anything about my thoughts on the previous Halloween event, well... Let's just say it's a mixed bag. Neither of them comes close to toppling the peak that was Glorious Masquerade. (Fandom consensus seems to be quite positive though, with many liking Nightmare more than, if not the same as, GloMasq while Playful Land is still considered the weakest of the bunch.) Playful Land and Lost in the Book with Nightmare Before Christmas both suffer from general pacing issues. The former had an intriguing premise and setting but also many plot holes, a lack of active involvement from the SSR squad, and a resolution that was way too convenient. The latter, Nightmare, was very boring throughout because the majority of the event was centered on party preparations. I enjoyed everyone's bickering and the SSR squad's role in the event, but I wanted more than just that. It's basically like Terror is Trending, but if it had the Nightmare Before Christmas characters also featured. However, Nightmare did have a really interesting ending that played with amnesia and time paradox tropes. It's just that the road to get there wasn't anything special. I'll now get into all of this in detail, but it's quite long. Ready for a read? Then let's go ^^

My Extended Ramblings:

The initial aesthetic is strong. VERY strong, especially to me, a girlie that loves Nightmare Before Christmas and formal wear😭 BY GOD DOES EVERYONE LOOK SHARP AND DRESSED TO KILL IN THOSE NIGHTMARE SUITS... The devs totally popped off with the fits. I also loved how all the characters' coloring shifted once they entered the book; there's notable hatch marks on their shadows and even their skin and hair adopt bleaker saturations. These are SO much better outfits than the GloMaq and Playful Land ones, I'M SORRY BUT THAT'S JUST THE TRUTH. The other events tended to have chunky silhouettes and/or overly embellished elements to their designs that didn't sit quite right with me. NIGHTMARE SUITS HOWEVER ARE PERFECT AS THEY ARE...

... That being said, I think this event's premise was not great. I know everyone's mileage with this will vary greatly, but personally I don't like Lost in the Book events. I don't enjoy having Disney properties so blatantly shoved at my face; I'd prefer it to just be a distant part of the lore and history of the Twst world. The other issue with the event being so closely tied to its Disney film is that the story becomes so predictable. You can't really explore beyond the bonds of what the film has already set up, so you're trapped with whatever status quo Disney has mandated is "okay". (For example, in Nightmare, it has to be set BEFORE the events of the actual film in order to keep things "the same" when the film events actually play out.) Lost in the Books rely on individual nostalgia to some extent to get you invested in what it's trying to sell. This was particularly evident in this event, which featured several characters from the film and made Jack a very big fixture in the story. I for one was not sold on it despite my own fond feelings for Nightmare Before Christmas. I needed it to prove its own merits to me, and I'm not entirely sure if it was successful on that front.

I have made it no secret that I don't like most Twst events in general. Too often does it feel like pointless meandering and sightseeing without anything of real substance happening (though I do enjoy meeting new characters and learning new lore). That's also the case with Nightmare; the scale of the conflict isn't anything spectacular--but that's fine, it can still work as is, even if I don't personally find it interesting. I was still plenty entertained by all the bickering between the boys and between them and the residents of Halloween Town. The highlights for me definitely have to be Jade being a little shit to everyone, Jamil being tormented with bugs, Sebek's big speech in the climax, and Leona just beefing with EVERYONE in sight (particularly Malleus). The comedy and character interactions helped the middle part of the event not feel dull. I do feel like them having to switch groups around halfway through was short of a shoehorned way to prolong the middle of the event though 💦

One thing I noticed like, right away as I was playing this event was how disjointed it felt. And for the life of me, I could not pinpoint why… until I went back and compared the number of chapters per part. This is how the parts break down:

Part 1 - 13 chapters

Part 2 - 22 chapters

Part 3 - 20 chapters

Part 4 - 13 chapters

Part 5 - 16 chapters

For comparison, Glomasq:

Part 1 - 15 chapters

Part 2 - 18 chapters

Part 3 - 17 chapters

Part 4 - 19 chapters

Part 5 - 18 chapters

And Playful Land:

Part 1 - 16 chapters

Part 2 - 21 chapters

Part 3 - 11 chapters

Part 4 - 16 chapters

Part 5 - 18 chapters

Generally, Part 1 is dedicated to setting up the scenario and reason for travel. Parts 2 and 3 are meant for exploring the new location, with a big reveal dropping towards the end of 3 that kicks the conflict into high-gear. Part 4 is for combat, and then Part 5 is the continuation of the combat (with a focus on confronting the Big Bad), climax, and resolution. … Did you notice it? GloMasq (the only event of the three I consider overall excellent) is pretty evenly spaced out. Playful Land meanwhile has a weirdly short 11 chapters in Part 3 but had the extremely long 21 chapters in Part 2 beforehand. The discrepancy is made even worse in Nightmare, with Parts 1 and 4 being woefully short and Parts 2 and 3 being 20+ chapters each. It has the (likely unintended) effect of making the conflict resolution feel really rushed.

Alright, I think I've held off for long enough. Let's talk about the elephant in the room, our new addition to the Halloweenies, Mister Skully J. Graves himself. Right from the get-go, he had a mysterious air about him, especially since he's the first ever character to meet his twisted inspiration. Like I said in my first impressions post, I'm really into his design, but his personality shocked me. I expect some whimsy, but not a guy that flat-out kisses everyone he meets and calls total strangers "lovely dears". At the same time, he has the spirit of "sad wet cat" energy, and his expressions can whiplash between that and being absolutely deranged, which I found kinda charming. I get the feeling that he charmed a LOT of fans, as I saw many gushing about his otome-esque behavior and loving how he always calls attention to Yuu and Yuu's opinions. Unfortunately, Skully has what I lovingly dub "Ashengrotto Syndrome" due to my own experiences with Azul. That is to say, I started off liking both Azul and Skully, but after a certain point (book 3 for Azul, part 2 for Skully) they both took a nosedive right into my dislike zone. This is something I vaguely alluded to in my halfway through the event impressions post. I'm under the impression that this is a surprising opinion, so I'll try to do my best to explain why Skully lost his appeal to me. So the initial deterrent was his defensive and controlling behavior surrounding Halloween. He also gets so nasty and speaks down to others who don't see his perspective, which I don't find cute at all. I've mentioned before that I hate it when characters act elitist/gate-keepy and refuse to accept other opinions or change, and Skully fits that bill to a T. Sure, he might have his reasons, but I still find the result of his reasons distasteful. It's fine if he wants to respect the past or celebrate Halloween the way he's been taught, but it's another thing entirely to force those views on others. I've been on the receiving end of this kind of attitude and it was very unpleasant; I would not wish that upon anyone. (To make a long story short, I had invited a friend from outside my culture for a holiday meal so neither of us would be alone that year. That friend then complained that I was eating "non-traditional" food for the holiday.) Really rubbed me the wrong way when Skully started to tell others about HIS Halloween while being totally against everyone else's suggestions. Some of the others (like Jamil) even made an effort to try and include him anyway after his outbursts, and Skully was still unable to accept this lying down.

The hand-kissing thing was... charming at first, because I thought it was just his way of greeting people. But the more Skully did it, the less charming it seemed to me because of how everyone reacts to it. The others are CLEARLY uncomfortable with it, but he disrespects their boundaries by continuing to do so. To me, that seems very invasive and rude. Skully especially kisses Yuu a lot, and whether or not you like it will be up to individual preference--but personally, as someone who doesn't like strangers touching me intimately, I'm not into it.

During the Halloween planning, I noticed Skully speaking to Yuu directly quite often, which is different than the previous Halloween events. I started to feel a little uneasy about this, and for the longest time I could not tell you why. Then I realized. I don't think I can explain it any better than how I did in a previous post, so I'll copy and paste from there:

Another thing that really bothered me was that Skully keeps asking Yuu for their opinion. It SEEMS polite to consider them, but his intentions are way less selfless than they appear. Skully is often asking Yuu for their thoughts AFTER some other character has disagreed with him. So he is literally only consulting Yuu because he wants someone on HIS side. If you ever pick the dialogue option where you disagree with him, Skully insists there must be a misunderstanding and he will explain it to you no matter how long it takes. Don’t you see??? He doesn’t want to know what Yuu truly thinks; he wants validation in his own way of thinking. That’s NOT actually being considerate. The same shit happens when Skully tries to kiss Grim again. Grim dodges but Skully sneaks behind him and kisses him anyway because I guess that’s what gentlemen do according to him. Bro has demonstrated time and time again he does not value consent nor what others’ thoughts are on anything that differs from his own thoughts.

Skully lets his true colors show around the end of the third part. There, he feeds Jack Skellington a sleeping poison, turns Grim into a pumpkin, then takes Jack, Grim, AND Yuu as his hostages while claiming he'll reign over Halloween. Okay, that sounds great on paper, right? But there's so many practical problems with this.

Firstly, HOW does Skully plan to achieve this??? He's not that powerful since he's a first year; how does he intend to stand up to the NRC students? We even know at this point that he can't use his UM that much. Skully has shown he is impulsive and doesn't think ahead too, because he just assumes that Grim figured him out after walking in on the scene of the crime instead of lying/deceiving him about who poisoned Jack. He could have easily blamed someone else or claimed he walked in and found Jack like this already, but he didn't. It comes off as very near-sighted and not well planned out on Skully's part (which may very well be intentional; I don't think he was written to be a large threat.) I know this event's plot isn't meant to be as serious as prior iterations of Halloween events, but it sure doesn't help build tension for the finale.

We find out later in the event that Skully isn't mistreating his captives; he's keeping them in the bathtub Lock, Shock, and Barrel ride around in, feeding Grim and Yuu snacks, and asking them to please keep quiet. He also rambles on a lot about how he admires Yuu and how he wants to grant them a perfect Halloween, etc. That's... wholesome for a kidnapper, I guess??? But what I don't appreciate is (again) how he keeps shoving his ideas onto me and acting like he knows what's best for everyone. He’s not respecting my autonomy or right to think how I want. Skully is literally made of the most negative traits of Idia and Malleus while having none of the danger level of either one/j 😭 This makes me continue to not take him seriously and think that Skully could easily be beaten up--which does, in fact, end up being the case.

The ones who truly shine in this event are Sebek, Jamil, and Leona. The implementation of the SSR squad in Nightmare is much better than Playful Land. In Playful, it felt like Kalim, Ace, and Ortho hardly did anything unique to save the day; instead, it was a convenient phone call that rescued them from demise. The most I can say is Kalim was open-minded and tried to welcome Fellow and hear him out. Most of the other things could have been fulfilled by any other character, which didn't make the SSRs feel as integral as they were in GloMasq (with Azul's UM being needed, Malleus being the one Rollo has beef with, and Idia understanding the feeling of losing a younger brother and mourning). In Nightmare, each of the SSRs is similarly given a chance to shine with their special skills and UMs.

Beginning with Sebek! He leads a lot of the planning and serves as the one to draw up plans, which earns him praise from everyone, including his seniors. It's excellent set-up for him to later confront Skully about the idea of being recognized and acknowledged by one's idols (which I will discuss later in this post). Sebek is also the first to confront Skully on Spiral Hill after Skully has kidnapped Grim, Yuu, and Jack. In an act of desperation, Skully starts firing off magic and making really deranged expressions; Sebek unleashes his own UM, Living Bolt. This results in a strong flash of light in their location. The impact destroys Skully's shades and causes him to break down--he wore them as part of his ensemble, trying so hard to emulate his Halloween idol, Jack. Skully manages to pumpkin Sebek in the midst of his fit, and Sebek insists that Malleus--his own idol--will surely rescue him. NEXT UP IS L*ONA OTL WHO HAS MADE ME SO ILL THE ENTIRE MONTH OF OCTOBER, HURK 🤢 who heard the shouting. He rescues Sebek (he’s de-pumpkin’d) and Skully isn’t able to touch him because King’s Roar is just too OP 😭 (I’m sort of confused about how tf Leona’s UM works though?????? He seems to be sanding Skully’s MAGIC, which shouldn’t even be tangible???) I’m confused. dbsvsjsnskwk And he tells Skully to get back up do he can keep beating him back down????? BRUTAL. Leona’s been pretty useful up until this point too, taking charge in leading the group, strategizing, sussing Skully out, and thinking long and hard about what his true identity is. Bro’s really working those fat brain cells of his, huh…

I think this is the first of the Halloween events (that introduce new characters) where the new guy’s explicitly said to be in danger of OB. Not sure why that is, it’s just interesting to note???

SkULLy RUNS FOR IT and bumps into Lock, Shock, and Barrel, who proceed to subdue him. Surprise, turns out that Jamil had gotten to them first and Snake Whispered the trio. The kids call Jamil MASTER and -SAMA… My guy, you are so repressed 💀 (I recall it being said in book 4 that using his UM on multiple people can result in rapid blog accumulation so UHHHH I guess I’ll overlook this for now or assume 3 people isn’t an issue????) Earlier in the event, Jamil was like the only person to approach Skully to try and include him in the planning. Must be used to this being a big brother + always dealing with his dorm.

I’m not sure if it’s just me but??? It feels like they overlooked how some of the SSR trio’s UMs worked just to have it fit in the context of the climax they wrote. For Jamil’s, maybe you can excuse the fact that he’s controlling 3 kids by saying it’s easier for him to manipulate young minds. BUT THERE’S NO EXCUSING HOW LEONA CAN SAND MAGIC 😭 At least say he has strong defensive magic that Skully cannot break through????

It’s times like these that make me really question whether or not Yuu is actually important for helping these people learn to get along, because they seemed to have resolved the issue just fine without any kind of intervention from Yuu. Yeah, they bickered and picked on each other too, but they still fixed things on their own (albeit on their own, but it comes together in the end anyway) while Yuu is kidnapped and completely out of the picture.

Vcdnsksksksn The moment that follows is kinda funny and wholesome… Well, for the SSR trio, not for Skully. They all sort of rub it in Skully’s face that he lost and then praise each other but in a back-handed way??? Like they call each other nasty and shit at planning, etc. Leona says Jamil bullied Skully so much that the poor thing started crying, then Jamil accuses Leona of threatening Skully a ton… then they gang up on Sebek (wow, they’re both awful and I love that for them).

Seeing this camaraderie makes Skully throw ANOTHER fit because he’s jealous that Sebek gets all this praise and attention. Meanwhile, Skully is all alone, always alone. Though it’s not explicitly stated, it’s implied Skully is deeply insecure about being by himself, as his classmates at school don’t understand him and rejected him + his interests. He extols a lonely and desolate version of Halloween too, something that reflects his own soul... clinging to the only solace he has in this world, the one constant. A holiday that he cherishes so very much--to the point where his own UM is linked back to it. The big dilemma he goes through this event seems to be a mix of having his own views being questioned as well as having his impression of his Halloween idol challenged. This makes Sebek a good foil character for him, similar to how Kalim was for Fellow and Idia for Rollo in the previous Halloween events. Skully even calls out Sebek explicitly, saying that he has all of the things he has never had. He'll never be disappointed by his idol Malleus (sadhbaslidbas this is ironic, considering the events of book 7), he has senpai who praise him, he has Zero for a friend, etc. Life’s soooo unfair, Skully claims. And like??? I was so shocked to see Sebek acting mature about the whole thing??????? He refutes Skully's claims and tells him straight up that to believe in someone isn't to force your own views onto them so your idol stays how you pictures them in your head. It's a mistake to think of one's idol as perfect--not even Malleus is perfect. Even so, Sebek explains that agreeing with someone and loving/respecting them are very different things... so he will accept Malleus's flaws and love him nevertheless. Even if he disagrees with Malleus, even if they have to part ways, Sebek will accept it. That's really surprising coming from him, seeing as how Sebek acts absolutely SURE of Malleus's absolute goodness in the main story... Now I'm wondering if this event must take place after book 7??? Because that's when Sebek has his own views on Malleus totally shaken. Still, I'm so proud of Sebek for dropping this hard truth on Skully--it's definitely something Skully needed to hear and be reminded of to be pulled back to reality. He also just outright calls Skully put for all his cowardly moves, including going after those who cannot fight back 💀 Very Ace of him to do…

Speaking of Skully, what really put the final nail in his coffin and sent him to the Shadow Realm (my dislike tier lol) was all the tantrums he threw this event. I understand being upset and frustrated. Really, I do. I understand being envious of others, of feeling like you've got no one by your side. But is it REALLY necessary to react like that…? And so frequently… He just shouts “shut up” over and over again… OTL I don't know, it feels like I could sympathize with him more if they properly explained why it is Skully is so into Halloween (besides his hometown being the same) and why he holds the past in such high regard. The most we get is it's just something his hometown is into and when he left for school, none of his peers really accepted that. Is the implication that Skully retreated further into his hyperfixation to cope with his loneliness????? If so, I'm not sure if this was properly conveyed so now Skully is left acting like a big baby and overreacting to everyone trying to get him to calm down. The worst of it is when he claims he’s the one who TRULY loves Halloween and everyone else is fake. That sounds like something straight out of an angry elitist otaku’s vent post. Other characters acted similar to this when on the brink of OB (which Skully was) but never so childishly. This might just be a me thing though, I don't really care for overly emotional characters; they're usually not my cup of tea.

I'm not sure how I feel about everyone forgiving Skully and partying with him at the end for the Halloween celebration. On one hand, yeah, forgiving him makes sense because it's not like he was plotting anything crazily world shattering like Rollo or a participating in a large-scale crime ring like Fellow. Skully didn't really harm anyone (though he did try to shatter someone he pumpkin’d), at least not on a large scale like Rollo and Fellow did. On the other hand, I think it was a little bit too overdone with how sappy it was??? Like why did Jack say he was PROUD of Skully for being so passionate that he went to these extremes for Halloween? Why did Jack give Skully a HEAD PAT after the shenanigans he pulled?? I felt that saying he's forgiven and inviting him to join the festivities anyway would be sufficient. And again, I detest how Skully disregarded everyone’s consent and kissed them (Yuu and the SSR trio) as an apology even when they (SSR trio) already made it clear they didn’t want to be kissed. That just felt super gross to me, not funny or cute 😔

One of the big highlights of this event was, of course, the Twst cover of This is Halloween. Everything about it is just so... *chef's kiss* from the strong vocal performance to the perfect selection of characters to recreate each scene. It's a shame that we can't access the song outside of this event, but I know that I'll be playing it on an endless loop off of Youtube 😂

For all of the issues I had with the story up until this point, I'll be the first to say that the ending was genuinely sweet. Skully actually expresses gratitude towards everyone (a first, lmao) and calls us his friends, the best thing that has ever happened to him, etc. He wants to meet with everyone and celebrate Halloween with them again. BUT. I don't like that he singled out Yuu specifically as someone he really likes. I get the same feelings from him as I do with Malleus... Like, there's a weird over-familiarity and attachment he has with Yuu despite Yuu not doing or saying much to bond with him. His reaction seems unwarranted to me, with a lot of the appeal of his friendship coming from how much the player projects onto him. (And to be clear, I say this ONLY for myself, as Yuu is meant to be a character for self-inserting; in the case where I put myself in Yuu's shoes, I would be uncomfortable with how Skully is acting toward me.)

Now we get to the ending that seems to have emotionally broken the fandom.

I said earlier in this post that I don't like Lost in the Book events, and another reason for that is because there's amnesia involved at the end. I feel like an event isn't worth it if the memories get wiped anyway because then it's like the events never happened at all. However, Nightmare actually played with this trope and did something really cool with it. Even though those who leave the book have their memories erased, they're still left with some residual feelings that can propel people to act. In the Stitch event, this resulted in the boys wanted to vacation to the beach. In Nightmare, Skully--who was transported within the book from his original time HUNDREDS OF YEARS AGO--was so touched by the connections he made in the book that he essentially becomes a changed man. He graduates from NRC and travels the world to spread the joy of Halloween, thus being responsible for why it's such a big holiday in modern Twisted Wonderland, the era which our main cast is from.

No one remembers the book's events, but Skully is so thoroughly motivated by his lost memories... He somehow recreates the Nightmare Suit, BUT DROPS THE SHADES (a symbol of him trying to emulate Jack) BECAUSE HE HAS NOW BECOME HIS OWN PERSON. He shares a jubilant version of Halloween because that's the version he cherished celebrating with his idol and first real friends. History doesn't remember him, but his legacy is still going strong. LIKE THE GAO POSE... DID IT ORIGINATE FROM HIM???? ? ? ? ??????? ?? AND NOW I'M THINKING ABOUT ALL THE FUN THE GHOSTS AND STUDENTS HAD IN THE FIRST EVER HALLOWEEN EVENT... BECAUSE OF HIM SPREADING THE HOLIDAY AROUND

The NRC students don't remember him either, but they must somewhere in the deepest recesses of their hearts... CUZ THEY ALL STILL MAKE COMMENTS ABOUT HIM, LIKE LEONA SAYING BRO LOOKS LIKE A PATHETIC LITTLE MEOWMEOW (exaggeration). There's also the implication that Skully's spirit is still around, since the characters remark feeling a strange cooling sensation on the back of their hands. We never SEE him, but we sense that there's something there. In the end, they promise that they'll make the best Halloween ever in honor of his legacy and we get sequel bait.

Twst REALLY had to go and drop that ending on us and then peace out, huh 🤡 It's hard to put my feelings about this ending into words, but I think I would personally describe it as very bittersweet yet romantic. Not lovey-dovey romantic, but like... it portrays a hopeful future even though it's sad too. Like, it's tragic that the NRC students and Skully will never be able to celebrate together again. But isn't it cool that even though they were born in totally different eras, fate still allowed them to meet and completely change the course of history? And even if they forget about their encounter, that meeting still impacts them to this very day. It changed the world and their lives forever. Reaching for that thing you're missins and forgetting, without really know what it is... Something lingering there, without a form... There's something so dream-like about the concept, I have to commend the Twst devs for coming up with it. In that sense, I'm quite satisfied with the conclusion despite the bumps in the road I ran into on the way.

IN CONCLUSION. Yeah, I thought this event was another mixed bag. The pacing was bad and nothing that interesting happened since the story was mainly about preparing for Halloween. I'm not a fan of Skully. However, what I can say is that Nightmare had a good showcase of Sebek, Jamil, and Leona's strong suits and actually allowed them to resolve the crisis. The ending is also much stronger than Playful Land's and poses many interesting questions about Skully and his impact on history.

[evagreen-stories]

The Forest Beauty | (Aemond x f!modern!reader) (part 1/?)

Summary: time traveler decides to live her new life out in the kingswood, avoiding the new world she finds herself in until an encounter with a certain one-eyed prince changes her life.

Warnings: dark!themes, dark!aemond, obsessive!aemond, book!aemond, no intimacy (smut starts with part 2), intro and first part are kinda a slow burn to introduce the storyline & character

Non-Canon Storyline: 3 years post war – greens won, Aegon's only son was k*lled and only has two daughters remaining, he cannot produce more heirs, Helaena is alive but depressed,Aemond serves as prince regent ever since Aegon got injured during the war and is chronically sick and getting weaker, Aemond is to inherit the iron throne soon, Aemond k*lled Alys Rivers along with all other strongs, Aemond broke the betrothal to Floris Baratheon when he became Prince Regent and won the war (Also, I'm not a native english speaker, please be patient with me)

Divider @targaryen-dynasty

< intro masterlist part 2 > (coming soon)

You wander around the woods, returning from another day of working in the city and coming closer and closer to your home when you start to feel uneasy, as if you’re not alone in the forest. You stop and listen, noticing the sound of footsteps close by. With careful steps you approach the sounds, noticing a head full of silvery hair between the trees and watching it carefully.

A man with an eyepatch, dressed in black leather clothes and carrying a long, sheathed sword on his hip. You monitor him carefully; his hands behind his back as he is gazing out into the treeline, he seems to be taking a stroll. But this deep within the forest?

You stalk him for a while, trailing his steps as you make sure to stay hidden. Too busy with staring at him you don't notice a branch on the ground, stepping on it and causing a loud *krack* sound.

The silver haired stranger turns around quickly, facing you and making eye contact. You know it's too late to hide now, as his lilac eye meets yours and a wicked smile forms on his lips

“Hello there, little one. Are you lost?”

“I could ask you the same thing.” You say, looking him up and down more closely now. He doesn’t look like someone that should be wandering this deep into the forest. You notice the tell-tale signs of a Targaryen. You’ve heard of them and noticed a few children with these features when you explored the street of silk once. But who exactly was this man standing in front of you right now?

His mouth twitches, eyes twinkling with mirth. “Oh, I am not lost, little lamb. Simply having a nice stroll to take my mind off the stress of ruling. May I ask who I have the pleasure of finding so deep in the woods?”

“No, you may not.” You answer, staying wary of the stranger. You’re starting to connect the emblems on his clothes and scabbard with the ones you’ve seen on royal guards patrolling the city before, this man must be one of the princes. “You should leave. These woods aren’t a place for a pretty prince like you.”

“My, my, my. So confrontational. Why the defensiveness, my beautiful little lamb? Are you hiding something?” He steps closer to you, his voice now has a hint of danger in it.

“No one wanders this part of the woods. You’re better suited closer to the city.” You say, trying to sound more polite than before, quickly understanding the prince might not appreciate the disrespect.

“Ah, yes, no one wanders this part of the woods. Well, that only makes me wonder how a pretty little lamb like you got herself as deep in here as I did. Unless, of course, you are not alone.” His eye leaves yours, scanning along the tree line before stepping closer once again.

“Relax, this is no ambush. Unless you keep on intruding on my space, then it just might.” You say sternly, hoping to play into his paranoia and get him to leave quickly.

“I do so wish I could believe you, little lamb.” His eye still scans over the tree line as his hand falls to the hilt of his sword. “How do you expect me to relax when a beautiful girl like you is all alone in the woods? You couldn’t have gotten this far without help.”

“I have. You don’t think all that dirt and tools on me are for decoration, do you?” You say, gesturing to the axe tied to your belt, knifes dangling off the bag you carry that’s strung over your chest.

“And what exactly did I catch you doing all alone in the woods, little lamb?” His voice is firm now, eye narrowing as he takes a closer look at you, trying to judge you.

You remain quiet for a few moments before deciding to answer truthfully. “I live here.”

“You live here, little lamb?” His eye scans over you once more. “YOU live in the woods?” His voice is filled with equal measures of surprise and disbelief.

“I do.” You say affirmingly. “And I’m not fond of guests.”

“A woman alone in the wild? No man to protect her? No family?” His disbelief is evident in his voice and expression. “I cannot imagine how a beautiful woman like you has endured out here.”

Upset at his words, you feel anger starting to boil deep inside of you. Women in this time are still property to be owned, another reason why you decided to live out here, away from society. “Cut the feigned sympathy. I live just fine out here.”

“But is it really living, little lamb? Living in the wild? Surely a woman of your beauty must desire the comfort and luxuries of civilization. Do you feel no desire to start a family, to have someone care for you and protect you?” His tone seems kinder now, almost caring, although his disbelief is still clear and you cannot shake the feeling of danger coming from him.

Suspicious at his invasive nature you raise an eyebrow. “What is this? A tea party to exchange gossip?”

“Oh no, little lamb. You are a most fascinating creature and you have sparked my interest. I am merely trying to find out more about who you are.”

“I’m not interested in conversation-“

“Now, now, little lamb, we’ve come this far already. It wouldn’t be very polite to turn down a crown prince like this.” His eye narrows, an obvious predatory hint in his voice as his hand tightens on the hilt of his blade. “It’s appalling for a citizen to turn down their crown prince, my dear little lamb.”

You tighten your jaw, nervous at the sudden turn this situation has taken but unwilling to comply with his orders. “I am not a citizen of yours-“

“Everyone is a citizen of mine!” His words are soothing with anger as his patience has reached its limit and he pulls the blade from its sheath. “Now come closer little lamb. I’ll help you back to the city where you belong, where it’s safe.” He begins to stalk towards you, his dark gaze fixed upon you.

You take a few steps back before you turn around and start running, using the the fact you know these woods like no other to lure him away from where your home is before skillfully outmaneuvering him in the thick forest, hiding successfully in a small cave. The silver haired man tries to follow you, you can hear him yell profanities and curse words as he struggles to keep up with you, eventually getting caught up in the thicket and falling behind. "Damn you!" Aemond shouts as he breaks free of the branches and finds himself standing in a clearing with no sign of the little Lamb in sight. Where the hell did she go? Damn this forest. Damn her.

He inelegantly shoves his sword back into its casing, taking a last long look around the scenery before begrudgingly turning around to make his way back to the city.

The rest of his day is plagued by thoughts about her, remembering every single detail about his encounter with this strange, wild little Lamb. She lives in the woods all alone, with no one to care for her? Surely, he thinks to himself, no one would truly want to do that.

She did seem awfully skilled at maneuvering the trees and avoiding my chase. Could she truly be completely alone? He wonders, staring into the lit fireplace of his chambers, his finger mindlessly tapping along the rim of the almost drained cup in his hand. His interest in the little lamb was definitely piqued. He would venture out into the woods to find her again once his duties allowed him to.

time skip / two weeks have passed

Things went back to normal after the encounter with the stranger, you didn’t see him again, but you did make sure to be extra cautious about your surroundings at all times, avoiding all travelers for the time being.

You’re sitting on a boulder in the river, only your ankles in the water as you sharpen your axe using whet stones from the river while waiting for the fish you caught this morning to finish smoking. You’re deep in thoughts as when you notice an unusual rustling of leaves behind you and catch a glimpse of the familiar silver head through the trees.

Here we go again.

The silver haired man had been stalking the Kingswood once again as he had done for several days since he encountered the strange little Lamb the first time. Searching for any hints as to where she lived, so that he could go back and speak with her again.

His hope was running low when then he finally saw her again, sitting in the river, tending to her tools. His heart skipped multiple beats, he couldn’t quite explain why he felt like this.

Still, she is the only one this far into the woods. No one around to protect her, just like when he had met her last time. This woman was a mystery he was most eager to solve. He slowly and deliberately stalked over to her, taking great care to be as sneaky and quiet as possible.

Even though you had noticed him immediately you keep focusing on your tool, pretending you hadn't noticed him as he approaches, hiding behind the last tree that provides him with cover before he would have to step out into the open.

"What is it you want?" You ask after a while, your voice loud and clear while your eyes are still focused on the task at hand. His attempts to remain hidden are more amusing than anything else.

The man was startled but quickly covers his reaction with his typical demeanor, standing proud with his hands behind his back as he steps out of the tree line and approaches the mysterious beauty carefully, as if trying not to startle her. She had quite a sharp ear. Although, he should have known better. If this little lamb had survived by herself in the woods, hearing the noises of the trees and animals was a skill she must have honed greatly.

Once he’s only a few feet away he stops abruptly, contemplating his choice of words before he speaks in a friendly yet stern manner. "You are quite perceptive little Lamb."

He remains quiet for a while. You’re still focused on your tool, not looking up, as you probe him further. "Speak. I know you've been following me for a while."

“I was simply fascinated with your lifestyle after our last encounter, that is all." He comes a few steps closer, enough to look at her properly, but not so close as to make himself a threat. "Why do you live out here, by yourself? Away from civilization and society?"

"Because I wish to do so." You say, now leaning forward to wash off the freshly sharpened axe in the river water.

"But is there no other reason little Lamb? You do not get... lonely? You do not yearn for society or friends? This forest is cold, dark, and dangerous." The mans voice seems filled with what seems like genuine concern for your welfare.

"The forests seem like that only to those who aren't welcome in them." You say, now looking up at him for the first time this conversation. "What do I get out of sharing my life story with you?"

Aemond's eyebrow quirked slightly at your words. Your words were not aggressive but they were not exactly kind or welcoming either. „You get to answer your crown prince a few questions that have been gnawing on his mind for a while. Who could say it wouldn’t be worth it?”

“I could say. The less people know about me, the better. Easier to stay hidden that way.”

Aemond stays silent after she says that, thinking over her words in his head. Stay hidden from what? From whom? What could make her feel that she must remain hidden... "Tell me, my little Lamb. Who are you hiding from?" Perhaps after finding out that one thing, he can put this obsession to rest.

"Men like you." You answer, now shifting your attention back to your tools, reaching back into the river to fetch out another whet stone to sharpen a big knife now.

"Men like me?" His eye narrows. " I am no threat to you. What could possibly have led you to believe that? You are alone so deep in the woods and I have not shown you any hostility... yet."

"No hostility?" You say laughing. "Chasing me with your sword was what then? A local friendship ritual I’m not familiar with?"

"Oh, I was simply trying to get you to stop and talk to me. That is all." He says, a small smile gracing his lips at her words. He found her laughter quite endearing.

“Didn’t work very well now, did it?”

"No I suppose not," His smile grows slightly, he finds this strange little Lamb's demeanor quite intriguing. He was never great at interacting with women, but this one seemed comfortable in his company, at least somewhat. Even if she was also incredibly untrusting and suspicious of him, or of men in general. He looks at her intently, savouring her smile as he knows his next words will wipe it right off her face again.

“I want to know more about you. I will not leave until you tell me more.” He says and as predicted, her cheeky smile gets replaced with a frown again.

“I told you, I won’t-“ he interrupts her quickly, almost pleading with her, “I know, I know. But I need to know. I cannot rest at night. I will not tell anyone about you. Whatever you tell me, it will not have any consequences, I swear it.”

You sigh deeply, pondering his words. You couldn’t care less for telling your story, the possibility of sharing too much lingering in the back of your mind. Then again, perhaps this is just what you needed. Sharing a bit of your true self with someone after having to carefully craft a fake persona and uphold it for the past two years. “Fine then. What is it you want to know?”

His eyes light up at that statement as he takes his time deciding which one of his many questions he should ask first. “Your accent, it seems out of place. Are you not from here?”

You immedily begin to regret your decision to talk to him, struggling to find a way to phrase the truth in a way it doesn’t sound too outlandish. “No, I am not. I come from a land far away, you wouldn’t know it.”

“Did you come alone?”

“Sort of. I came here with others but they… forgot me. Or maybe they are just unable to return. I wouldn’t know.”  You say, looking out into the flowing river as you remember.

“Forgot you? Why would your family just forget you?”

“They weren’t my family. They were… people I knew. We went here and they left, never to return, at least not until today. They probably told my family I died.” What had they told your family? You often wondered it. The changes of the seasons and moons made it easy for you to tell how much time had passed here, in this world. Did as much time pass back home? Was your family even informed of what truly happened or were they waiting back home for a sign of life that would never come, with no way of knowing your fate?

Aemond is quiet for a while, processing this information. “How long have you been here?”

“I’ve been here two winters already, the coming one will be my third.”

“THAT long?” He blurts out, mind racing. “You have survived here alone all this time, out in this forest, with no family or friends? How?”

A slight smile tugs at the corner of your lips, amused by his disbelief. “Yes, I have. I’m friendly with some of the farmers around here and some merchants. I was fortunate, really, that I was stranded here with a few tools and a bit of money.”

“That could not have been enough to make you survive here. The winters can be hard, as can be nature itself. I don’t know a single woman that would be able to survive like this even with all the tools in the world.”

“I suppose you’re right.” You shrug. This is your normal, all you knew for most of your life, you often forget just how unusual it really is. “I come from a family of farmers. We lived far out, away from civilization, and I learned a lot about nature that way. I am, or was, my parents only child. I spend many years of my childhood in the forest with my dad. He was an avid fisher and knew all the ways around the forest, while my mom taught me all about her knowledge of herbs. She was a healer of sorts.” 

Your smile returns as she recalls all her fond memories of home. Oh, how you wished you’d never left the farm. “They bred, trained, and sold horses too. I was strapped to a saddle on my own horse before I could even walk.”

His face shifts from one of shock to one of sympathy. He could tell by your words and the tone your voice takes that you missed home dearly. “And you have no way back?”

“No.” You state plainly. Do you? Truthfully, you do not know, but you surely hope you do.

“Why? If I give you coin for passage, can you go back home?”

“I’m afraid its not that easy.” You huff, struggling to make up an answer to this question. “Unless they come get me, I have no way back. I… I’m done talking about this.” You say, now shaking your head.

He wants to press further but understands he shouldn’t, not if he’d like to keep you talking. “Well then… What are you planning to do here then? You can’t just stay out here forever.”

“Why not?” You conter. “I’ve gotten comfortable out here. I know my way around the woods and can survive quite well out here. I’ve come to appreciate my little life out here quite a lot, actually.”

“Is this really life or is this survival? What about finding a family of your own, what about children?”

You sigh deeply. “I may not have answers to all those questions yet, but I do now I’m content here for now. I have no duties here, no bills to worry about. I just need to figure out my next meal and get to enjoy nature the rest of the time with all the peace and quiet it offers me.”

The change of topic strikes a chord in you, one you didn’t realise was as sensitive as it seems to be. The prospect of having to live out the rest of your days in this time is one that seemed more and more realistic and the question of what you would actually do for the next twenty, forty, sixty years of your life was one burning in the back of your mind more and more frequently.

“I’m done talking for today. You may leave now.” You dismissed the prince, frustration growing inside you.

He is not happy about this, his expression shows this as much as the tone of his voice. “Leave? I just arrived. You can’t just send me away.”

“I do not wish to tell any more stories.” You state. Just as he begins to talk again you turn to face him quickly, looking at him for a few seconds before proposing a compromise. Maybe you just needed some time to gather your thoughts and calm the inner turmoil you can feel bubbling deep inside your chest right now. “How about this: If you can find me again, I will answer you more questions. Anything you want.”

His jaw clenches as he lets out a long sigh. This is not how he wanted this conversation to end but he could tell from her expression that she seemed exhausted and the prospect of getting to ask anything he wanted seemed tempting enough to agree. “Fine then. I will seek you out again soon, but I will not rest until I have all my answers. You must swear you will not avoid me again.”

“I swear it.” You answer, a reassuring smile on your lips. “Have a safe travel back, my prince.”

She had been speaking so freely all this time that hearing her address him properly caught him off guard for a moment. He stands still in place, watching her a bit longer, before begrudgingly turning around to leave after bidding a small goodbye.

As he walks away you turn around slightly, watching the swaying of his silver hair until it disappears completely between the trees. A long, deep sigh escapes your lips as you resume your tasks for the day, thinking about all the questions he asked and what you really wanted from your life now.

You were honest, you did love your life as it was now, but sometimes the solitude did get to you as well. A craving for the love and closeness your family had brought you. As much as you cursed the prince when you had first met him, maybe having his attention on you could be a good thing after all.

He thought his mind would be calmed after speaking to her but to his dismay, the opposite had happened. His head is filled with questions still and worse so, genuine worry about her wellbeing. Yes, his little lamb had survived well by herself, but the confirmation that she was truly alone out there was deeply unsettling to him. When he is laying in bed that night, he realised just how little he knew about her. He didn’t know where she lived – did she have a house or did she sleep under the stars? He had never even asked her name. What would it be? If she is from far away, it surely was exotic.

He keeps tossing and turning that night, the picture of her smiling face filling his mind, even more so when he closes his eye, as if he can see even clearer when the world isn’t distracting him. He tries to sleep but he swears he hears her laugh, still as clear and comforting as it had been when he heard it the first time. A sound so sweet it could lull him to sleep, if only there wasn’t the gaping emptiness next to him, reminding him of your absence, of the fact you’re all alone out there. If something happened to you tonight, would he ever find out? He could not bear the thought of it.

His night stays restless. He falls asleep again and again, dreaming vividly about the way your cheeks rounded when you smiled at him, about the freckles on your nose, the small dimples that appeared under your cheeks when you smiled and over your lips when you pursed your lips in dismay at another thing he said.

It was improper, he knew that much. For a prince, the heir to the throne, to be so enchanted by a forest dweller. Nevertheless, his heart skipped a beat every time he had laid his eyes on her. His mind went back to think about all your interactions at every chance it got, even in the midst of important meetings. He was a devoted and proper man; he knew better and yet, something about her felt so fundamentally right that a future without her seemed wrong.

When the first rays of sunshine broke though his windows he had made his decision. He would go to see her again and this time, he would not leave her behind. He could not. He will find her and bring her – well, where? Somewhere, anywhere he knows she is safe, where he knows he can find her whenever he wants to see her. He will figure it all out, he will find a way to make this work.

His feet soon carry him through the castle, unaware of where he is going until he finds himself in front of two wooden doors. The kings, his brothers, chambers.

Currently editing the next part, that one will be 18+! Second series about Aemond x reader coming soon as well (currently proof reading chapter one)!

[accio-victuuri]

okay, let’s do a part two of birthday cpns. part one is here incase you missed it ✌🏼

let’s start with this wardrobe match. xzs posted another set of photos and this time, xz is all dressed up. well it turns out it’s from the same brand/collection as what yibo wore at yh concert which is amiri. it’s kinda special cause that’s what he used to perform somebody else’s arms which i think is personal. and adding the cpn that the design on wyb’s side had WX on it.

it’s like the tom ford thing ( among others ) all over again. granted that this is a good brand that they have used before but it’s so sus! do they have the same taste? lol. i imagine them talking about clothes and sharing what they think looks good on them. and personally, that collection had some v interesting pieces. so glad they get to wear stuff like this and not just plain black suits.

now we move on to yibo’s usual photoset related to exploring the unknown 🗺️. he does share personal photos he took from his time shooting for the past saturdays so we knew he will post today. fans have noticed that the number 33 ( gg’s age now ) is somehow incorporated.

his past posts only had one emoji or none. that’s how short and simple he is and we got used to that pattern. but for today, he had 9. and it’s 3 emojis reposted 3x. 33. when people also check this on weibo, it’s coming up as 33 characters. this exact combination. you can put in 9 other emojis that use the hand but it’s not 33. this may be a coincidence. you can say that there are lots of emojis because it’s the last weekend he is expressing his thanks.

also, if you count all the photos/videos in sets he shared ever since he started it’s 33. not including the one posted today.

the universe is truly clowning us. 🤡🤡🤡

and oh, the photoset of wyb and xzs new photoshoot were posted a minute apart. did wyb miss the 16:23? or maybe he was really going for 16:24. I found an explanation here of what it means and it’s so sweet?!

The number 1624 represents love and romance. it can be explained in two ways: 1. Pinyin homophony: In Chinese, "one hundred sixty-two four" is harmonious to "all the way". the sound means smooth progress and smooth development on the road to love. therefore, some people will do it on the occasion of marriage proposal or anniversary.

Digit Split: Split the number, i.e. "1 6" and "24". "16" represents the meaning of "one heart and one mind". it means giving and serving wholeheartedly in love and "24" represents the hours of each day of your life. The number implies that the two of them will spend a whole life together. Day and night, we accompany each other and never leave.

some are also talking about the closed loop of yibo starting his bday with a photo in the desert. and then posting about it again on xz’s bday. 💛

it seems so similar to xz’s bday photoshoot before in a desert where he wore the GUCCI couple necklace. i don’t think i have to explain much, if you were there or read about it — you would know how chaotically sweet that year was.

and the first emoji yibo used ✊🏻✊🏻✊🏻 is the same as the gestured they did in this photo ⬇️⬇️⬇️

this photo too, maybe i’m wrong but when i saw it i was like — two sets of tableware? Is he on a date? lol. or maybe it’s the girlfriend fantasy they are serving here. you and gege on a date? HAHAHAHAHAHA!

FINALLY, xz studio shared 18 photos for the first set. and 9 on the second. they could easily made it 18 + 18 cause that’s the max and i’m sure they have lots of photos. but no. it’s 18 + 9 = 27 which is yibo’s age.

PLEASE SHUT UP. 🤣🤣🤣🤣

I honestly thought it was gonna be chill considering the kinds of cpns we picked up on part one. but this is kinda insane. lol. I think we will still get a video? the behind the scenes of the photoshoots ( hopefully ) and i’m excited to see it!!!!!!

END.

[lousirs]

UD headcanons no one asked for!

my motivation has gone to get the milk and has not come back since, SO HEY! who wants to hear some random headcanons that have been microwaving in my head for the past year???

this is going to be a long one...

stuff under the cut vvv

Lou is the kinda guy to only pack nice looking outfits on a holiday. Do they suit the occasion? Probably not. But he wants to look the part every where he goes, even if he's wearing a suit during the middle of summer

He would also be the guy to complain that it's too cold, even though he was told to pack up layers of clothes for a hiking trip, and didn't. But when someone tries to give him a coat, he says "I don't need that, I'm fine!" even though he looks like he's going to freeze over.

He takes the coat not too soon after

On the other hand, either Nolan or Ox would overpack for a trip. Ox because he is basically the fatherly figure of the group, and wants to make sure that everyone has enough food, water, and layers of clothing for the trip. Oh, and he brings a first aid kit as well. Nolan however does it because "What if I didn't pack enough?? What if I need this oddly specific thing??" and packs more than he needs to

Speaking of Ox, he always came off as a character who really enjoys camping and exploring, ya know? He seems like the leader of a scout group who loves to sing campfire songs and tell spooky stories that no one believes. (him and Rhidian would get along well)

LITERALLY NO ONE TALKS ABOUT LUCKYBAT AND OX'S DYNAMIC AND IT'S DRIVING ME WILD. Hello?? A withdrawn and somewhat jaded mayor who is protective of those he's close to with his intelligent, caring and concerned assistant?? That sounds interesting!

I'm sure LuckyBat knows more than anyone else (besides Lou) of what Ox went through. Perhaps he didn't know about the Institute, but he knew ox went through some stuff outside Uglyville. Perhaps that's why he's so cautious to go into the pipe.

(And perhaps the reason why he decides to go to learn new stuff was for the sake of finding out what Ox doesn't speak about?)

Back to the Prettydolls, I always found it interesting that Nolan was able to run the gauntlet despite being imperfect, although Moxy and Mandy, two other imperfect dolls, were thrown into recycling. Why was Nolan allowed to run the gauntlet, huh Lou? Didn't you say that any unideal looking doll goes to recycling, Lou????

Personally, I like to think that Lou allowed Nolan to do training and was like "Haha watch this idiot fail". And turns out Nolan was really good at it (flashbacks to Nolan being buff in the novel). Lou is flabbergasted.

...Either that or Lou just allowed him to run the gauntlet to watch him fail immediately because "Haha funny" and also "Haha imperfects can't win. Suck it loser~"

Kitty is jealous of Mandy's makeup skills, and often copies her because of it, too embarrassed to ask for advice because she needs to learn on her own. After Lou gets overthrown, Kitty and Mandy help each other out on their makeup and hair

Tuesday is the girl to think that "Yeah I'm smiling, but inside I'm crying" is the deepest thing to ever exist. Kitty bullies her for it.

Also, Tuesday cry-sings "I'm a mess" by Bebe Rexha after Lou denied her 1244th love confession. She will try again tomorrow

Because Kelly Clarkson was pop-rock for a while, I like to imagine that Moxy had a rock-n-roll rebellious phase, and still has a few characteristics from that era of her life

During the scene where Lou is going up the gauntlet lift with everyone else, he is constantly moving about. Winking at Mandy to fake confidence, adjusting his suit...etc. I always saw this has him being nervous, because you know, he's about to expose himself for being a prototype after this gauntlet stuff is over. So I like to think that he fiddles around with his suit when he's nervous. Mainly readjusting the sleeves, tightening his ascot tie and flicking out his collar. Also pulling out loose threads, if there is any.

I thought for the longest time that when Lou's hair got slightly messier, it showed him being more genuine. There is one god damn strand on his fringe that goes from being in place to hanging out, and I thought it showed him losing his façade, very very subtly.

This might be a hot take but I always saw Loundy (Mandy/Lou) as being friends/lovers to enemies. Think about it: Lou and Mandy seemed to have some sort of connection, Mandy (in my opinion) basically being Lou's assistant, similar to the spy girls. She began thinking he was perfect, and they formed a (seemingly) close bond. But over time, as Lou's desperation for perfection increased, her opinion of him soured, and she realised he isn't as perfect as she thought. She kept the negative thoughts to herself, though. Who would believe her? The perfect doll with the flawless looks and endless talents, topped off with a charming personality... Why would he be unhinged? How would he be unhinged?

You know that line Mandy says to Lou at the gauntlet? "You know, Lou.. When I first got here, I thought you were perfect. I couldn't find a single thing wrong with you. But, I can see a lot better now." perhaps that wasn't just talking about the events of the film, as it probably implies. Maybe she knows how terrible he's been for a long time...

That's all I got for now, I may doodle some of these if motivation comes back, who knows..

[leggerefiore]

Since we have villains catching their so touching themselves to their clothes, could we have them touching themselves? With or without so's clothes

cw: 18+ content, masturbation, clothes sniffing,

characters: Lysandre, Cyrus, Volo, Guzma

🔥Lysandre☀️

☕️ He usually tended not fall to such ways of resorting his needs. His preference certainly fell towards having a moment alone with his partner to relieve himself. Yet, a rare situation arose after coming home to an empty apartment. You had left a note detailing that you would be away for a while and not to worry, but Lysandre felt utterly distraught. He, himself, had been away for days, having been stuck between business meetings and whatever else decided to come up. Sighing, he seemed to accept the inevitable. A message to you had been left unread for much too long. Lysandre found himself sitting on the bed, clutching a shirt of yours tightly. A lingering smell settled his mind as he slid away the many layers he wore. His hand found itself grasping his cock. Where had you gone?

☕️ He could only wonder as his hand came to grip his dick. The stress of running both his lab and Team Flare was naturally getting to him. He had planned to relieve it with you, but he supposed that this would work well enough. As he began to pump his hand, he drew together a scene in his mind of you dressed so delicately. Lingerie that he had carefully picked out to just suit your body complimented you every bit as well as he expected. You were laid out on the bed as his hands explored both your skin and the fabric curiously. A groan left him as the erotic image as his hand began to move faster. Your lingering scent on the shirt worsened his yearning. The lingerie would become a mess as he began to thrust into you. Your body was a perfect fit underneath him. His stomach felt tight as his orgasm grew closer and closer.

☕️ But, it never came. Instead, the door of the bedroom opened, and he immediately withdrew his hand in a panic. You stood there with a bag hanging off your arm. It seemed to be forgotten as you stepped into the room. He did not even feel overly surprised when you daringly sat in his lap. Lysandre sighed when your hand came to grip his length and gently began to imitate the movements he was doing moments prior. A kiss soon was shared between you both as it turned into something deeper. He stopped you once again before he could cum, wanting more than just to get off like this. You pulled away from the kiss and panted, resting your forehead against his own. “Well, that was a nice sight to come home to,” you lightly joked as he gripped your hips tightly, “Lys, ravish me.” He gladly obliged your request.

🌌Cyrus🛰

☄️ He hated doing things like this. It felt like he was giving into his base instincts. The feeling had suddenly come over him as he sat down on the bed. You had gone away for the day, writing out a quick text telling him that you decided to travel to Jubilife for whatever reason. Exhaustion lapped at his mind, but so did something else. Cyrus grumbled as he grasped your pillow. The lingering smell of you set his mind at ease. You always teased him. Your texts may have seemed innocent to an unrelated bystander, but he knew better. His teeth were clenched together. The images of your outfits you would send him flashed in his mind. Cyrus hated the idea that you actually knew exactly how to work him up and now had denied him a chance to get you back. No matter, he supposed.

☄️ His hand quickly undid his pants' button as he freed his dick from the constraints. You tormented him. He gripped it firmly as he began methodically to jerk his hand up and down. Normally, you pestered him by rutting against his groin whenever you decided to initiate sex. The image of you sitting in his lap, panting and whining, made his toes curl. His hand began to move faster as he imagined your hand instead being the one wrapped around his dick. You would coo things in his ear about how cute his flustered face was, or beg him to make a sound. He swallowed. Somehow, the image of you laid underneath him in vest Galactic vest made him much too close. His hand would grip your thighs as he positioned himself, ready to thrust into you. A quiet groan left his throat as his hand's movements became more and more sporadic. What had you cursed him with?

☄️ Yet, just before he could finally cum and relieve himself of his temporary madness, a sound stopped him. A door opening. His head instantly shot to where it was. You stood just outside of the bedroom with wide eyes. His hand froze. Before either of you could say a word, you dropped the bag you were holding and found yourself eagerly at his side. Your grip replaced his own. The rate his heart raced at was concerning. “Cy,” you cooed at him playfully, “You really thought I left for Jubilife? Come on, I was just trying to surprise you with your favourite meal.” The ingredients were forgotten, however, as your hand began to pump his dick. He allowed this, deciding that he would much rather this be over as soon as possible. Of course, that was not your intention as you suddenly pinned him to the bed. “I missed you, too,” your hand was already pulling down your bottoms. Dinner would be coming much later than usual, it seemed.

💫Volo📜

⭐️ He hated the feelings you brought out of him. Envy. Annoyance. Rage. So many negative feelings dwelled within the blond whenever you unfortunately crossed his mind. The worst, however, had to be the lust that swirled inside him. You ruined his plans. Arceus sent you specifically to stop him, and then mocked him further by choosing you in front of him. Yet, Volo still could not get you out of his mind, no matter his desperate attempts. Revenge was the furthest thing from his mind as he clenched a forgotten top that you had left at a Galaxy Team camp. He brought it to his nose as he felt your familiar scent overcome his mind. His mind played many scenes of you bending over before him as you did your research tasks, or the way you called out his name.

⭐️ His bottoms were quickly undone as he instantly fisted his cock. Many images of you in various states of undress crossed his mind, yet the odd one out of among them was how you fell back at the Temple of Sinnoh. The fear on your face — how you seemed utterly beneath him, made his grip grow tighter as he jerked his hand up and down his length. Volo wanted to pin you to the ground at the sacred place and absolutely ravish you in front of the deity that found it so easy to deride him. Your moans echoed in his ears as his motions grew more and more frenzied. He pretended the rigid feeling of his hand was you, yet his mind obviously knew better. A groan left his throat as he felt himself moving closer to the edge by the second.

⭐️ His hand came to a complete stop as the door to his cabin opened up. Your eyes met his as you stood in confusion. “... So, you did have my shirt,” you bravely entered the home and shut the door behind you, “I know I have been busy, Volo, but you terrified the professor.” When you were in his range, he suddenly pinned you to the ground. You made a distressed sound as you fell against the floor. The blond instantly had your wrists pinned above your head. You sighed, “Well, threaten me with a good time, why don't you?” He grumbled about how you managed to kill the scene so quickly. It mattered little as he pulled down your bottoms with ease. You helped him get off your strange underwear, and he soon found himself re-enacting a similar scene to the one from his imagination.

🕶Guzma💀

□ The delinquent gave a sigh as he entered his room to not see you there. Of all the times you had gone off. Guzma quickly checked his phone to confirm you were off doing something in Malie and left Po town. He sat down on his bed and ran a hand through his hair. There was nothing to do. He debated something between wandering around the beach for Wimpod sightings again or harassing Nanu. The idea of the old man sending one of his cats after him again made him stop, though. Instead, he spied a forgotten piece of laundry laid on out the floor. He felt his grin grow on his face.

□ Pulling down his sweats, he pulled out his cock. The grunts were out of the house for a while, which gave him some personal time. His hand grasped his dick as he focused on the underwear you had left behind on the floor. Putting them to his nose, he gave a sniff and felt he was between your legs. Guzma pumped his length as he thought about you pressed against his sheets. You were wearing his medallion and his coat as you moaned underneath him. He began to move his hand in time with the thrusts in his fantasy. It had been a while since you two had been at it because of all the shit Lusamine had him doing. His movements grew more frantic as the fictional you called out his name. Guzma knew he was about to bust a nut.

□ It never came, though, because the bedroom door swung open and made let go of his dick in a panic. Before he could pull up his sweats and go off on whatever grunt dared do something so stupid, he heard you call out his name. You saw him and instantly shut the door behind you. “Seriously, Guz? I told you I wasn't going to be long,” you sighed as you walked over to him. He let out a high-pitched noise when you grabbed his dick. “I've missed you too much to let this pass by,” you told him plainly, “Lay down.” The big, bad boss was not about to deny an order from his partner. His fantasy was fulfilled in a different way.

[sitp-recs]

Hello!! Thank you for this blog really its been so lovely reading fics from the master list I've discovered drarry because of you! My favorite "trope" so far is draco who's struggling a lot but manages to preservere and even find humour in the worst situations. I find his character that way truly inspiring. Do some fics like that come to mind? I'd love to hear your recommendations and to read more fics like this

Hi anon! Welcome to Drarry, I’m so happy to see you enjoying the lists 💜 I love a struggling Draco who’s still proud and snarky and a little shit, that’s such a great take on the trope! Here are some recs focused on Draco’s resilience and perseverance. You can also check GallaPlacidia’s archive, who usually explores this trope in a sweet and light-hearted way. And if I can add something on the angstier side, Take A Chance On Me by @mintawasalreadytaken and Winner Takes It All by @skeptiquewrites are two underrated masterpieces among my top favorite down & out Draco fics. I’ll come back to add more titles as they come to mind. Enjoy!

Rebuilding Draco Malfoy by khasael (E, 11k)

Draco wants to do something to get his life back on track, but no-one seems to be taking him seriously – until he finds himself in an Auror training session led by Harry Potter.

The Year of Non-Magical Thinking by whiskyandwildflowers (E, 13k)

"I don't know what I'm going to do, Potter. I'll think of something. So will you. But this is my journey to self-actualization," Draco managed to smirk. "You can fuck off and get your own."

Open For Repairs by @drarrytrash (M, 35k)

After the war, Draco works at a tv repair shop and Harry breaks things.

The Vanishing Department by @dictacontrion (E, 47k)

The things we lose have a way of coming back to us in the end, even if that involves a lot more form-filling, bickering, covert glancing, miscommunication, and flying furniture than we might expect.

Heal Thyself by astolat (T, 47k)

"Are you going for the course?" Lovegood asked. "You have the NEWTs.” “What course?” Draco said, then, “No, don’t be ridiculous,” when he realized she meant the notice pinned up on the board he’d been staring at: Applicants To The Introductory Mediwizard Course For The Coming Term Shall Present Themselves In The Chief Mediwizard’s Office By August 24th.

Kept in Cages by @sweet-s0rr0w, @ihopeyoubothstaysafefromharm (E, 77k)

Deep in the heart of the Ministry lies the Beast Division: a hidden room where ancient beasts roam, and winged creatures soar, and grumpy giant ferrets eat all your biscuits unless you keep them well hidden. Draco Malfoy would know – he’s been working there for five years now, after all.

The Liars Department by @dorthyanndrarry (T, 103k)

This is a story about Harry meeting up with Draco Malfoy four years after the war. And a story about Harry, well, not hating his job per say, but it's not like he has much to compare it to and it seemed fine. His whole life seemed fine. Then Malfoy came along with and his flashy suits and fast car making everything seem dull in comparison, and Harry... Harry couldn't just leave well enough alone.

By the Grace by lettered (T, 140k)

Harry is an Auror instructor. Malfoy wants to be an Auror.

Whatever You Want, Draco Malfoy by DorthyAnn (E, WIP)

Draco lost his home and the only society he knew after the war. He ended up living in the muggle world, making new friends and new connections and maybe some sort of peace. Even if that peace was usually found at the bottom of a bottle. It was enough for him. He was content to just exist. Then Harry Potter decided to ruin everything.

[rainforest-daisies]

Day 11|virginity loss

Character: Peter Parker x afab!reader

Tags: smut, virgin!peter, sub!peter, PIV,

A/n: I fully re-entered my marvel era again for like two hours while making this….

Kinktober masterlist

“Uhm- I don't really know what to do now…” his hands grasped your hips against his stiff body, a special something poking at your thigh, alerting you of the issue that had sprung up during your make-out session. His mind raced with thoughts, he had never gotten this far with a girl, let alone one of the prettiest ones he had ever met.

Your legs continued to straddle him, his hands on your hips keeping you in place, as you listened to Peter's mumbled rambles, “What do you want me to do? I-i can leave if you want…I mean it's my apartment, but-” Eventually, he ran out of words, gazing into your eyes in silence. An awkward chuckle left his lips, not knowing how to continue his sentence.

“Peter, are you a virgin?” Your words hit him like a semi-truck, yet, he stuttered out an answer, shocked over your blatancy, “Y-yes- well- um- yeah. I'm a virgin.” his fingers fondled the hem of your sweater, a blush tinting his cheeks as if your words had slapped him in the face. “Can I touch you again?” your words soothed the worry in his mind, the worry that you found him lame, or weird, for being a virgin. “Yes!” he cringed at the eagerness in his voice, repeating himself with a calmer tone, “Yeah, yeah.” he shrugged, smiling at the grin formed on your face.

Your hands met his chest at the same time your lips to his, Peter's slim hands rising under the back of your shirt as he felt the soft flesh that adorned you. His face pulled away from yours, causing confusion to infiltrate your mind, but upon opening your eyes, you saw the small smile hanging from his lips again. “I'm actually about to have sex…” his posture suddenly straightened, “I mean, in like a really cool, not nervous kind of way.” a chuckle left his lips at the sarcasm, relaxing himself in your arms again.

His lips pushed against yours again, catching yourself off guard, and taking it as a moment to savor. He couldn't believe that you chose him to touch you, to please you, his mind was clouded with bewilderment, but with each passing second, the belief grew stronger in his head that this isn't a wet dream. with your exploring hands in control, his sweatpants were quick to be discarded, thrown across his wooden desk chair. His t-shirt followed suit.

Your eyes trailed down his body, admiring the lean muscles in his arms, the small freckles atop his strong abs, and the ever-growing bulge in his boxers, and back up at his face, admiring your expressions. “This is unfair. I'm almost naked and…and you're still fully clothed.” in his mind, it was a pathetic excuse to see more of you, the hormonal sex drive that had been making him go crazy was influencing his mind, but hell did it work.

His jaw seemed to be permanently slack as soon as you took your top off, figuratively, and possibly literally, drooling over the sight of your tits. “Wow. I mean, wow.” his mind was malfunctioning. he could barely form words, all the blood in his body was either rushing to his cheeks, or his bulge.

He had seen this moment in porn, read it in books that were snagged from the library, heard about it from guys talking way too loudly in the cafeteria, but in person, in front of him in real-time, he was short-circuiting. In a dazed state, his mouth pressed kisses against your chest, moving your hips against his, practically grinding you against him.

Your voice brought him back to reality, pulling away from your chest, “Say that again?” his doe eyes looked up at you as if you were a goddess. in his eyes, you were one.

“Are you ready? you're getting awfully needy.” his hand reached the back of your neck, smashing your face against his, passionately kissing you. “Shit- shit. I forgot to grab a condom. let me get up.” your body hesitantly pulls away, watching as he stumbles off his bed and across his room to his desk, rummaging through an old box, with a condom stuffed in the bottom of it. “Health class last month really paid off, huh.” looking down at the foil package, he chuckles, but when he looked back up, he had seen you discarded your pants and underwear as he was looking in the box.

Soon, his body was on top of yours, holding his figure up with one hand, holding your face with the other. “Can…I put it on you? the condom?” your words make him shudder, and nod quickly. As your hand slid against his length, unrolling the condom on him, a loud, uncontrollable moan left his parted lips.

“Wait…I read about a guy doing something once,” his hand from your face lifted to his mouth, spitting into his palm and rubbing it against your core, paying extra attention to your clit, “and apparently it's hot…so…”

Your hand gently grasped his lenth, and helped guide him inside, his face scrunched at the warmth of your cunt, a loud whimper threatening to be released any second. shit, he was close already. He had been inside of you for less than a minute, and he was already close.

It wasn't long before he could feel himself throbbing, trying to hold himself back for as long as possible, yet, when he heard the sweetest noise that had ever graced his ears come out of your mouth, he was already filling up the condom. With pants and breaths coming from his mouth, forehead rested atop yours, he pulled out with a whine of sensitivity, and his body began dragging itself down your body, pressing feather-light pecks across your skin as he did so.

“C’mere, baby. I wanna make you cum too.”

[gffa]

Okay, so it was a month since my last BATFAMILY fic recs set, but in my defense a) huge life changes and b) I did a quick count up of how many recs I had built up and it was literally well over a million words. A million words! In one recs set! And this is like the seventh one of these that I've done! And I still have at least a thousand fics on my reader that I haven't started! Because this fandom has seriously not just consumed my brain, but given me absolutely amazing stuff to read that scratches all the itches I desperately have--well, okay, scratches the itch I have for my Dick Grayson Problem, but same thing.

I've really needed some escapism lately and being able to laugh or cry or just sink into a nice, long novella or even novel-length fic has really been a godsend has done a lot to soothe me and help me process feelings that sometimes otherwise can feel too overwhelming to deal with. All while also giving me the exploration of issues or decompression time with the characters' issues that the canon itself doesn't have the space for. So, I hope this list can give others something to read in the way it has given me so much that I've loved and brought me joy or emotional catharsis, because fandom has been really incredible about Bringing The Good Stuff and I want to repay the favor!

BATFAM FIC RECS - BABY DICK IS THE CUTEST FERAL ROBIN I'M NOT HEARING ANY ARGUMENTS: ✦ The Halfway Point by Sugarcookie222, dick & bruce & alfred & clark, 5k     After a miscommunication with Bruce, a 13-year-old Dick runs away. He makes it as far as a diner in a nearby state. Bruce had left to finalize the adoption papers but clearly needs to work on his communication skills. He calls Superman in a panic to help him find Dick.

✦ be safe, they said (be good) by deargalileo, bruce & dick & alfred, 4k     there's a tree in the wayne's backyard. a very specific tree, one that seems to attract daring children like bees to honey. unfortunately for the children, it is not a tree that is suited for climbing. fortunately for the children, they have fathers who are there to stitch them up.

✦ a haunted ballroom by lothIoriens, bruce & dick & alfred, 11.9k wip     When Dick stumbles across the ghosts of Wayne Manor dancing the night away in an abandoned wing of the house, he thinks that, finally, something might be normal again. But the ghosts are nervous, and he doesn't know why. Something is brewing underneath the surface of Wayne Manor, and it's up to Dick to find out what it is—and it's up to Bruce to make sure nothing happens to his charge in the meantime.

✦ Straight On Til Morning by audreycritter, bruce & dick, 1.2k     Bruce wakes Dick up on a school night to show him the sky. It dredges up memories for Dick, and it would be a disaster, except it’s Bruce. And Bruce understands.

✦ (More) Pressing Matters by Syl, bruce & dick, 39.2k     Dick Grayson arrives at Wayne Manor, a cold empty place, shortly after his parents' murder: A re-telling of the Boy Wonder's well-known origin story.

✦ First Action Hero by Goldmonger, bruce & dick & clark & cast, 3.5k     “Jerkwads,” Dick said darkly, taking Clark’s hand. He looked up at him then, dressed smartly in a black suit and tie, and wearing converses with Sonic the Hedgehog on them. “You okay, Uncle Clark?”

✦ Lil Birdy Wants to Fly by lil_taair, bruce & dick, 3.8k     Bruce would have usually appreciated the cheeky smile that was directed at him if his son wasn’t 25 fucking feet off the ground

✦ World's Finest: Fortress of Friendship by WingFeathers, bruce & dick & clark & diana, 6.9k     Finally, Dick talks Bruce into letting him see the Fortress of Solitude – provided that Dick stay safe and out of the way while the Trinity discusses some Secret Important Business about a certain young Amazon. Clark promises that the Fortress will be safe, but is that a promise he can make?

✦ Stolen Son by springfox (dallystrings), bruce & dick & jim, 8.6k     Dick is excited to visit an American mall for the first time, and Bruce struggles to understand the difference between 'guardian' and 'dad'.

✦ Comfort Food by motleyfam, bruce & dick, ~1k     Dick struggles to find his appetite in the aftermath of his parents’ deaths.

✦ The meaning of justice by Fleur_de_Violette, bruce & dick & babs & cast, 4.6k     As Bruce drives toward Gotham Academy, he tries to imagine all the possible reasons for the principal to call him. He has a lot of imagination. Especially when it comes to bad things happening to Dick. Still, his ward being a suspect for attempted murder hadn’t been on his list.

✦ The Question Game by Santana2, dick & bruce, 1.3k     Basketball can be a very enlightening game if you play it right. Little expansion on Robin's part in Downtime

✦ Cat's Eat Birds by Nightwing_DC_2112, dick & bruce & selina & cast, 12k     After a run in with the Scarecrow Robin is separated from Batman fighting off the effects of Crane's Fear Toxin when an unlikely ally steps in to prevent him getting into further trouble.

✦ World's Finest Mini Issue: Happy Birthday by WingFeathers, bruce & dick (& minor clark/bruce & alfred), 1.8k     Bruce hoped for an emergency to get him out of his birthday party. He just didn’t want Dick to be the one in need of help. BATFAM FIC RECS - ADULT BATSON AND BATDAD ARE MY KRYPTONITE, I FOLD LIKE WET CARDBOARD FOR THEM: ✦ Truth Serum is the Worst by JackHawksmoor, dick & bruce, 3.1k     Batman gets dosed with a truth serum and unexpectedly spends most of the time talking about how desperately he loves his children, how awesome they are, and how he wishes he was better at being a father.

✦ Holy Time Travel Fuckery, Batmen by That_One_Curly_Haired_Fangirl, dick & bruce, 4.4k     Batman is dead, and Dick has reluctantly taken up the mantle. So then why are there four Batmen, all clearly Bruce, standing in front of him on this rooftop?

✦ The Waking World by Fairy527, dick & bruce, 2.2k     This isn’t the first time Dick has gone to Bruce after a nightmare. However, this is the first time his nightmare has involved Bruce's murder at his own hands, and it doesn't settle well.

✦ More Alike Than You'll Ever Admit coffeeandchocolate, dick & bruce, 1.2k     Dick Grayson has always been there alongside Batman. So if no one else is going to acknowledge that his first year wearing the cowl was harder, well, he's just going to have to do it himself. After Bruce returns from being lost in time, he and his eldest argue.

✦ Almost, Nearly by CKBookish, dick & bruce & jason & cast, 8.1k     Dick was just supposed to go with him to lunch. He wasn't supposed to get shot. He wasn't supposed to be bleeding out in the pouring rain on the steps of Wayne Enterprises. But then Bruce hadn't expected that sniper and he had seen it far to late. BATFAM FIC RECS - EVERYBODY LOVES DICK: ✦ Behind Granite and Lime by JeanjacketCarf, dick & bruce & jason & tim & barbara & cass, 14.5k wip     Cassandra had noticed. Of course, she noticed. That was the problem, she couldn’t turn it off. She always had to see, always had to know. So she knew when Dick came back from his mission that something was wrong. Or something is off with Dick. Hopefully, it doesn't have anything to do with those murders.

✦ Soup's On by HoodEx, dick & donna, 2k     Taking care of Dick never feels like a burden, it feels like an instinct. And Donna's really good at following her instincts.

✦ to dream away a sleepless night by waffle-wonder (cosmic_croissant), dick & bruce & jason & tim & damian & cass & stephanie & duke, 2.7k     Dick was fine. He was fine. Sure, he was having a little trouble focusing on unlocking his apartment door, but that didn’t mean anything. Or- Dick is exhausted. His family catches him when he falls.

✦ Temporary by daringyounggrayson, bruce & dick & alfred & cast, 14.8k     The double homicide at Haly’s Circus is not Bruce’s first case involving a child, and while there's no overt indication that Bruce should react differently to this case, he supposes that his previous cases did not involve the witness known as Dick Grayson. On the surface, the Grayson case seems like any other gang case, but the more time Bruce spends with the boy, the more he begins to doubt his own instincts.

✦ To the Moving and the Strange by SilverSkiesAtMidnight, dick & bruce & alfred & tim & cast, 6k     Thankfully, Alfred tips his head in acknowledgement. “I do,” he agrees. “I remember a great many things. But I have forgotten things too, and I expect as time goes on, more of them will slip away from me, and it’s entirely possible that I won’t even notice they’re gone. My memories of them will simply be… less.” Dick looks at him, studying the lines of his weathered face. “Does that ever make you feel like... like if you loved them more, you’d remember them?”

✦ better luck nest time by ScarlettSwordMoon, dick & bruce & jason & tim & damian & cass & steph & duke & cast, 47k wip     Feeling as if Dick’s family does not appreciate him enough, an alternate Earth version of Babs turns Dick into a bird. Now each member of the Batfamily must confess something to him if they ever want to see Dick as a human again. AKA The tale of a family and their birb.

✦ deep roots (are not reached by the frost) by fanfictiongreenirises, bruce & dick & jason & tim & damian & cass & cast, de-aged!dick, 85.2k wip     Dick gets reverted to a younger self after being kidnapped on during a case. But this is far from a routine de-aging.

✦ Bludhaven Police Department by Lady_of_Lorule, bruce & dick & jason & tim & barbara & amy & donna & wally & cast, 31.1k     Sgt. Amy Rohrbach learns that her partner, rookie cop Dick Grayson, is not what he seems. Or how Amy finds out that Dick Grayson is the heir to the entire Wayne fortune, the vigilante Nightwing, the leader of the Titans, and meets some of the Batfam and the Titans along the way. BATFAM FIC RECS - DICK AND DAMIAN WERE THE BEST BATMAN & ROBIN, I'M NOT HEARING ARGUMENTS ABOUT THAT EITHER: ✦ Too Many Walls and Not Enough Bridges by CamsthiSky, dick & damian, 3.7k     There's something bothering Damian. Dick's determined to help Damian feel comfortable enough to share it.

✦ All The Small Things by Geeves, dick & damian & bruce & cast, 20.1k     After Bruce's return to the Bat, Dick and Damian have to deal with just being brothers, but things are just a bit too messy to be that easy BATFAM FIC RECS - BATKIDS ALL HAVE MANY SIBLINGS AND THEY'RE ALL PETTY ASSHOLES AND/OR WONDERFUL BABIES AND I LOVE THEM WITH MY WHOLE BEING: ✦ Do-over by mx_chrx99, dick & jason & todd & damian & steph, 6.2k     Jason never really got to do the "family vacation" thing. Neither did Tim, Steph, or Damian. Dick did, but that was ages ago. Now's their chance to make up for lost time.

✦ pick up off the floor by deargalileo, dick & jason & bruce, 3k     there was a lump on Bruce's office floor. a Dickwing shaped lump.

✦ the trials and tribulations of fatherhood by InkpotSprite, bruce & dick & jason & tim, 2k     Dick, Jason and Tim compete to see who was the worst child. The answer surprises them all. On an unrelated note, Bruce is wondering if adoptions are a lifetime deal, or if they can be undone.

✦ A Time To Reflect by Experimental_Muse, bruce & dick & jason & tim & damian & cass & duke & alfred, time travel, 14.5k     Bruce finds himself stuck in the past, and while waiting for the league to pick him up, struggles to get along with his past self. Plus being in a practically empty manor is a bigger adjustment than he'd like to admit. BATFAM FIC RECS - SOMETIMES YOU JUST THINK BRUCE AND DIANA SHOULD KISS IT OUT: ✦ One equal temper of heroic hearts by victoria_p (musesfool), bruce/diana, nsfw, 1.5k     Bruce and Diana reconcile at Nanda Parbat.

✦ Thanksgiving at the Kents by starknjarvis, bruce/diana & cast, 8.9k     Clark convinces Diana to come to the farm for Thanksgiving, and Diana finally gets the chance to meet Bruce's kids. There are far more of them than she had expected.

✦ Escape Artistry by David Hines (hradzka), bruce/diana & cast, 24.2k     Wonder Woman is eager to learn new things. Batman, less so. Primarily JL animated continuity; some comic elements from as far back as the Golden Age. Complete. BATFAM FIC RECS - I WILL DIE ON THE HILL THAT TIM DRAKE'S TRUE LOVE INTEREST IS CONNER KENT AND NOBODY CAN STOP ME, NOT EVEN GOD: ✦ Will you die for (marry) me? by Ididloveyou_once, tim/kon & cassie & bart & cast, 7.8k     Tim sacrifices himself on a mission and lives. Conner hates that. They struggle through the aftermath.

✦ A Saturday Evening by malcyon, tim/kon & clark/lois & jonathan kent/martha kent & kara, 13.8k     Kon invites Tim over for dinner. Tim's not sure if he should have accepted that invitation.

✦ Sending all my love to you by Paintedqueen, tim/kon, 10.9k wip     Conner and Tim get blasted into New Earth where they meet an old friend.

✦ Composed of Us by starlikeknight, tim/kon & bruce & dick & cast, 37.1k wip     Or, a spiralling Tim clones a baby without thinking about the consequences. And there are many, many consequences. BATFAM FIC RECS - I SAY THIS IS A BATFAM REC LIST BUT SOMETIMES YOU JUST GOTTA SHOVE THOSE ASSHOLES OUT OF THE WAY AND READ SOME SUPERFIC: ✦ All these things (that I'll never know) by Paintedqueen, conner & clark & kara & jonathan & implied tim/kon & cast, 12.7k     Kon-El's journey on what it means to be Kryptonian.

✦ birthday bash by yeeyee123, conner & clark & jon & tim/kon, 11.8k     Kon’s pumped that Clark has brought him in to help put together Jon’s 8th birthday party. No really, he is! Just don’t ask him directly about it, or he may need to go leave the room and take a breather. Inhaling helium gas from all those balloons isn’t good for you, you know?

✦ Catching Icarus by Fantasyfire, conner & clark & justice league, 24.8k wip     A bad encounter with magic banishes Superboy into another world. Stranded, the Kryptonian clone must deal with a whole new league and a much different Superman.

✦ Nobody's Child by Kizmet, clark & conner & lois & ma kent & pa kent & cast, 18k     Superboy is deaged. While Young Justice looks for a cure Batman sticks Clark Kent with babysitting duties. BATFAM FIC RECS - TAKE THE ANGST DIAL, TURN IT UP TO ELEVEN, AND BREAK THE KNOB OFF, THAT'S WHAT I'M HERE FOR: ✦ Adeamus by miss_aphelion, bruce & dick & stephanie & damian & jason & tim & clark & cast, 32k     I'll always be there to catch you, Bruce had promised him once. Dick would like to believe it hadn’t been meant as a threat at the time. (or; Bruce takes over Gotham to keep his sons safe, but he’s already trained Dick too well to always protect others first)

✦ Gorgon’s eyes by Fleur_de_Violette, bruce & dick & jason & tim & damian & barbara & cast, 9k     Dick will give time to his family. He’s just came back as Nightwing after being undercover in Spyral; he understands that they won’t forgive him immediately. Except, when an encounter with neurotoxin leaves him completely paralyzed, he has no choice but to rely on them.

✦ bad signal by prismatical, bruce & dick & jason & tim & damian & cass & cast, 38.4k     The rescue mission went well. Nightwing is safe. Everything should be alright. Right?

✦ And The Crown Will Sing by ScarlettSwordMoon, bruce & dick & jason & tim & damian & barbara & cast, read the tags, 84.7k wip     After an encounter with alien technology, Bruce re-evaluates some previously held ideals. Gotham doesn’t need a Knight, she needs a King. Bruce will do whatever it takes to secure his rightful place as ruler of Gotham. He will do whatever it takes to keep his sons by his side. Even if it means breaking them in first. [Dark Bruce Wayne, eventual Dark Batfam]

✦ borderline by TheResurrectionist, bruce & dick & jason & tim & damian & cass & steph, 22.7k wip     A mysterious force connects the Batfamily's minds together.

✦ Parting is all we Know of Heaven by Sword_Kallya, dick & bruce & jason & tim & damian & amy, suicidal ideation, 11.9k     Three months after Batman returns from the timestream, Dick Grayson has disappeared.

✦ Behind Granite and Lime by JeanjacketCarf, dick & bruce & jason & tim & damian & barbara & cass & cast, read the tags, 18k wip     Cassandra had noticed. Of course, she noticed. That was the problem, she couldn’t turn it off. She always had to see, always had to know. So she knew when Dick came back from his mission that something was wrong. Or something is off with Dick. Hopefully, it doesn't have anything to do with those murders.

✦ A Little Out of the Ordinary by dizarys, tim & dick & conner & slade & cast, 1.5k     A boot scraped against stone at the same time pain seared through Tim’s chest, radiating from one sharp, jabbing point. With a gasping wheeze, he tried to grab at it. But his arms refused to move.

✦ Override Two: Family Protocol by zombiesbecrazy, dick & bruce & jason & tim & damian & barbara & cass & cast, talon!dick, 78.3k     When faced with an impossible and inescapable situation, Dick does the only thing left that he can do to save his family. Surrender himself to the Court of Owls to become their Talon in exchange for their lives.

✦ Weekend Commute by CKBookish, bruce & dick & jason & tim & donna & wally & cast, 7.4k     Dick Grayson makes his way home during the first snow fall of the year, when he finds himself confused and cold, miles from home.

✦ What These Hands Have Done by WinterSky101, bruce & dick & jason & tim & damian & cass & steph & alfred & cast, 14k     Dick is mind controlled into attacking his family. Unsurprisingly, he takes the whole thing very badly.

✦ birdsong by ScarlettSwordMoon, bruce & dick & jason & tim & damian & steph & cast, 22.7k     After getting a face full of Scarecrow’s newest toxin, Dick isn’t haunted by his typical nightmares. No. This one has little green pixie boots. AKA Batman: Ego but make it Robin.

✦ New Krypton by Hawkstout, dick & clark & bruce & cast, read the tags, 15.9k wip     Robin is captured by the Kryptonians and put under the care of Kal-El, the man he has known as Superman. Kal-El wants to do his best for Robin and keep the boy safe and healthy. He's fond of him. They were friends once. He hopes that once Robin understands the invasion of his home is for the best that he will grow to see him as a guardian, maybe even as a father. But Robin doesn't need another father. He needs a way to escape.

✦ i was not born to drown by daringyounggrayson, bruce & dick & tim & damian & donna & wally & roy & cast, 25.2k     Or: After getting shot by Doctor Hurt, Dick develops chronic migraines.

✦ Running Headlong into My Arms by gleesquid, bruce/selina & dick & jason & tim & damian & barbara & cass & steph & alfred & cast (& some minor pairings), 54.2k     Bruce doesn’t like to credit one thing for saving his life, but if he did, it would be Haly’s Circus that Friday night in September, just as summer was beginning to die. (He'll always be a sucker for kids with sad eyes, no parents, and more fight than the world knows what to do with.) Or: in a universe where superheroes don't exist, Bruce Wayne finds his family.

✦ Waking In The Night Light by I_Have_To_Get_Off_This_Planet, bruce & dick & jason & tim & cass, 7.1k     Aside from the soft pitter-pattering of rain against the window, it’s quiet in the room. Tranquil, Bruce thinks. Or at least, as tranquil as a hospital room can get. BATFAM FIC RECS - THROW BABY DICK AT BATTISON, C'MON DO IT, IT'LL BE HILARIOUS: ✦ take these broken wings and learn to fly by fishingclocks, dick & bruce & alfred, 49.2k wip     or, How Dick Grayson Burrowed His Way Inextricably into the Heart of Bruce Wayne

✦ A Bat and his Birds by SalParadiseLost, bruce & dick & jason & tim, 3.1k     Bruce Wayne adopts a child on impulse... and then another... and then another. He doesn't know what he's doing, but somehow it doesn't end up too bad except for the fact that his kids think he's a vampire.

[dreamofjoys]

DAY 1 KINKTOBER 2023

7 min in heaven? More like 7 days inside you!

Main Masterlist + Rules / Next Day of kinktober

A/N: Please read the rules on my kinktober 2023 main masterlist before proceeding. Rule breakers will be blocked.

Characters involved (separated): Malleus draconia(TWST), Wriothlesly(Genshin), Ayato(Genshin), Nanook(HSR), Luo Cha(HSR)

Sypnosis: After getting officially married, you and your husband decided to finally go to your long awaited 7 days honeymoon in a resort at private island specially reserved by your husband! Those 7 days were meant to be fun and relaxing, but why are you so tired by the end of it?

C/W: Fem reader, possessive, slight implications of yandere at nanook's part, jealousy, fingering, squirting, begging, praising, overstimulation, luocha having nasty/bad ideas. This story takes place for 7 days (7 fics)

BY OPENING THE TAB BELOW, YOU CONSENT TO READ DC/SMUT WRITING + HAVE READ THE RULES

Day 1 Scenario

"Here's the room that is specially reserved for you. Please enjoy your stay here, my lord and milady." The butler bowed before closing the door to give you and your husband some private time alone. Your eyes sparkled in joy as you take in the magnificent sight in front of you. This was more than a room. It was a grand suite that consist of a living room, kitchen, a master bed room and two guest room. The furniture was decorated in luxurious gold and red colour that was made fitted for royalty. You decided to explore the master bed room first. As expected, you were not disappointed by the results. The whole room was well lighted up due to the floor-to-ceiling windows, which provided a magnificent view to the outside, which is the sea. A king size bed was placed in the middle of the room, with a plush looking set of tables and chairs beside it. There was another door at the side, which you can only assume that it leads to the bathroom. "This place is so cool!" You exclaimed, twirling around in excitement before landing on the bed with a oompf sound. Your husband trails behind you, humming in approval at the service that they were given. It seems like he was satisfied from the abundance of money he had spent on this honeymoon trip. "How did you get to know this place?" You looked at your husband who has taken his place beside you, twirling a strand of your hair around his index finger and thumb. "I did some extensive research to make sure that everything was to your liking." His hand switches to caress your cheek, before sliding down to the plum of your boobs, and further down to the swell of your ass. "What's wrong?" You blinked innocently, trying to the shake off your excitement at your husband's actions, but the wet poolness in between your legs says otherwise. He knows you are aroused when he finally slips a finger into your labia, your slick easily coating him as he starts finger fucking you. "That butler has some nerves to check you out while I right infront of him." You spread your legs wider, eager to welcome your husband's digit while he rambles off about how it's rude to stare at one's wife. "Don't hold back your moans, I need you to scream."

𝗠𝗔𝗟𝗟𝗘𝗨𝗦 𝗗𝗥𝗔𝗖𝗢𝗡𝗜𝗔

He was a god at making you squirm around just by his mere fingers alone, curling it on a "C" motion, deliberately applying pressure onto that one spot that he knows will have you screaming his name out.

"I can tell that the butler likes you." Another finger in and he had you begging him for more. "Ma-malleus! There please!"

"Am I making you feel good? Say it and I will give you more."

"Ye-yes yes!" You start rutting your hips on his fingers, your toes curling when he manages to hit a even deeper and delicate spot inside you. "You make me feel so good! Malleus please!"

Malleus hums in satisfaction at your begging. His free hand toying with your sensitive clit, rubbing it in a fast circular motion, prompting you to release all over his hands as you let out the lewdest and loudest moan.

𝗪𝗥𝗜𝗢𝗧𝗛𝗟𝗘𝗦𝗟𝗬

"Sh-shit-"

"No bad words sweet heart, or else I might throw you into jail. But that would be better right? That way, no man will ever looking at you."

Wriothelesly carefully scissors your hole open, wanting to test how much your cunt can open up just by finger fucking you alone. "Are you tired already? I haven't stretched you to the size of my cock yet." Each time his fingers stretches you open, you whine at the cool air breezing through your vagina, reminding you of how empty it feels inside.

"Want your big cock please-" Wriothlesly raises an eyebrow at your statement, intrigued at your boldness. "Sweetie, if you want me to fuck you nice and good, you need to scream for it."

𝗞𝗔𝗠𝗜𝗦𝗔𝗧𝗢 𝗔𝗬𝗔𝗧𝗢

"Yato, faster please?"

"I can't hear you, dear."

"Fa-faster please!"

"It seems like my hearing is having a problem today. Dear, would you mind screaming what you want out loud?" His fingers were thrusting into you at an agonizingly slow pace, so much so that you want to just fuck yourself on his fingers, but the steady grip on your waist says otherwise.

"PLEASE FUCK YOUR FINGERS IN FASTER, AYATO!" One moment you were screaming at your request, the next moment you were screaming and moaning at his slender long fingers repeatedly pressing onto your sweet spots, sending your eyes rolling to the back of your head at the sudden waves of pleasure.

"Mhm, that's more like it." Ayato smiles, feeling satisfied that you had gave in to his teasing once again.

𝗡𝗔𝗡𝗢𝗢𝗞

The Aeon of Destruction lives only to destroy, and that includes abusing your insides with his whole fist in.

"Na-nanook! We just started. Please hah slow down a little!"

"What for?" He clicks his tongue in annoyance, mind still preoccupied with the filthy butler who dared to look at you. "Im just doing what I normally use to do." The room was filled with the sound of your slick squelching as Nanook fist his hand into you like a punching bag. You wanted to move away from him, feeling overwhelmed by his fisting but he only pulls you back, lightly scolding you not to run away from him.

"Wa-wait, Im gonna-" He groans when he feels your wall tightening around his fist, clear liquid shooting out of your hole and onto his muscular arms. "Did you just squirt on me? Wife, you are really cute."

𝗟𝗨𝗢 𝗖𝗛𝗔

"Soon honey, I know you are going to come any moment now." Luo cha murmurs, seemingly focusing on pleasuring you with his skilled fingers.

"Luo-Luocha, a bit more on the right please! Ah yes, there!" Your high pitch moans drives Luocha insane. He might be burning with jealously at the butler who was previous oogling at your figure, but his focus has somehow switched to wanting to give you the best sexual experience ever.

"Don't hold yourself back, hun." Luocha fiddles with your bundles of nerves, encouraging the knot on your stomach to release and flood over his hands and staining the clean bedsheet with your juices.

A sinister thought of asking the butler to come in and change the bedsheet had appeared in Luocha's mind......

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Jay Kuo for Think Big Picture:

We’re all still grieving the electoral loss and feeling queasy about the prospect of Trump returning to the White House in January. But in response to the giddy pronouncements from the GOP and the Trump campaign, some have already begun to think about an effective political resistance to Trump and Trumpism. 

Democrats need to make these plans knowing full well that Trump will be backed by a sycophantic GOP Congress and blank check-writing SCOTUS. And this time around, there won’t be any adults in the room, including White House counsel who during his first term would quietly shelve Trump’s most outrageous requests, or chiefs of staff like John Kelly who would struggle to moderate, educate and soften his most extreme positions. No, this time around Trump will be surrounded by people even further to the right of him. They will seek to implement the most dangerous and destructive of policies, many drawn from the Project 2025 blueprint. And they will encourage Trump to issue Executive Orders that could reshape American democracy, insert our armed forces deeply into civil affairs, hurtle our economy into an abyss, and upend the lives of millions of minorities.

This is a thought piece, an early stab (and work in progress) about how Democrats (and the lawyers who are aligned with them) can ready themselves to resist Trump. We’re in very new territory here, but the ideas are based on what we’ve learned about Trump from both his first term and the four years he’s been more or less idle when he wasn’t sitting in courtrooms or stumping on the campaign trail. They play into both his ego and the worst aspects of his character and leadership style. I hope you find this early exploration a good starting point for how the next four years could go if Democrats play their cards smartly, even if the strategy seems highly unorthodox. Note that I won’t be discussing what average citizens might consider doing. This, for now, is the beginning of a political and legal strategy. Others involved in grassroots organizing may have ideas for direct resistance by citizens, but that is for another discussion.

[...]

Hit ‘em with lawfare

One of the most effective weapons against Trump’s policies during his first term was the slew of lawsuits that his executive orders met when they were first announced. Remember the Muslim ban? That bounced up and down the courts for years before it could finally go into effect in a watered-down form. 

Lawyers from every non-profit walk of life should be readying civil complaints today, just as people like Russ Vought are already preparing horrific executive orders for Trump to sign. The minute Trump announces his Day One policy to deport millions of undocumented migrants, for example, lawyers everywhere should file suit. It shouldn’t just be one suit; it should be several. Tie up the White House lawyers and the Trump Justice Department with as many cognizable claims as they can think of. More than the sheer number, they should file these cases before judges in jurisdictions where the appellate courts will be more friendly, such as in the Ninth Circuit. This is the inverse of what MAGA and Christian Nationalist legal counsel have been doing now for years by picking a single court near Amarillo, Texas to ensure their cases are heard before radical judge Matthew Kacsmaryk.

Once those cases are filed, judges (and their clerks) should slow-walk them. Act like the nun in The Sound Of Music, opening the gate as slowly as she can so the Nazis are delayed. Then, after issuing temporary restraining orders, set the hearings out as far as possible. Have the lawyers demand extensions. File motions that could receive interlocutory appeals, to further gum things up. In short, drag things out as long as possible to prevent his policies from going into effect. Governors in blue border states could also get involved. California and Arizona both have Democratic governors, after all. And they also have Democratic state attorneys general. These states could move to intervene in suits or file them on their own, just as the red states have done to block Biden’s policies like student debt relief. Sure, this will eventually get up to the Supreme Court and get overturned, but the point is delay. Run out the clock, run out the clock, run out the clock. Trump only gets four years, two before the midterms. [...]

These are but a few broad-stroke ideas, but it’s time everyone who will be part of the resistance start thinking about how they can play a vital part in pushing back. Some of these tactics are admittedly unorthodox, others quite petty. Still others are variations on what has worked well before. Together, they could bog down or distract Trump and the White House just long enough for the midterms to give Democrats a chance to regain control of one or both chambers and really turn up the heat.

It may make many quite uncomfortable to consider deploying these kinds of strategies. They make Democrats into obstructionists, even political saboteurs, much as the GOP has been for the few cycles when Democrats have been in charge.  But here there is a difference, though it’s one MAGA Republicans will never acknowledge: When actual fascists have taken control of the government and are trying to destroy democracy, patriotic opponents must use every peaceful means at their disposal to prevent them. Indeed, it is a moral imperative, because millions of lives are on the line. We cannot act as if the world has not changed, and Democrats must grow far more accustomed to acting outside the box and getting creative in their approaches.

It’s time for Democrats to play rough by delaying and gumming up Donald Trump’s tyrannical proposals to run the clock down.

[gingerteawrites]

Drabble: Summer dates

Where Nanami is the most attentive to you.

A/N: I’m so glad to bring you this new drabble. I’ve been thinking a lot of more characters to write about on the blog, but as always, Nanami comes out on top. I have not edited this very thoroughly, so, apologies if it’s a bit clunky.

Please feel free to suggest ideas you would like me to write about, as well as characters from various anime and games you would want to see. I truly love reading your thoughts more than anything.

Content: fluff, established relationship, Nanami X reader. Reader is described in a more feminine manner but no pronouns used.

You and Nanami did not go out together nearly as much as other couples. Between your jobs/studies, jujutsu, and the general fatigue that adulthood seemed to be tied with, most weekends were spent at home, where you shared soft touches and home-cooked meals.

This weekend, however, Nanami had decided that you deserved to get out of the house for things other than just work obligations. As you ate breakfast beside each other, he explained how he planned a day outside for you two.

“This spot has very good pastries. And I know you’ve been wanting to explore the new shopping district in Roppongi,” he said, his voice a smooth rumble, enveloping you in its warmth as you felt your heart squeeze in affection.

“You didn’t have to,” you said, your lips forming a light pout as you reached out to squeeze his hand. He smiled at you and pulled your chair closer to his in one swift motion to deliver a feather-light kiss to your lips “Of course I had to. You deserve everything, my love.” He whispered against your lips, and if you had not been sitting already, you would have crumpled to the floor with the way it made your knees go weak.

With the summer heat hitting Tokyo in insistent waves, you settled on wearing a light sundress that fit snugly at the top and sprawled out until your knees, which had caused you to almost not make it out of the house with the way that Kento had squeezed your waist and kissed your exposed neck, mumbling about how beautiful you looked.

Nanami had ditched his usual suit and tie for a pair of loose white slacks and a brown polo shirt. He locked the door behind the both of you and as you stepped into the sweltering heat, you squinted your eyes at the bright sun. But before you could even comment on its intensity, Nanami pulled out a parasol from the bag he carried, splaying it open above your heads.

His eyes met yours with a knowing look, and you smiled back in silent thanks.

Walking through the streets hand in hand made you feel all giddy. Nanami had never been one for PDA, feeling that Gojo invaded his personal space enough. But being with you had caused him to want to feel a part of your body at all times. Knowing you were in his hold put him at ease, like he could protect you if anything came up.

You finally made it to Roppongi, exiting the train station with the rush of other people out for the weekend. Lunch consisted of cold noodles and refreshing shaved ice, and you bought pastries to eat as a dessert for dinner later in the evening.

“I saw a new bread recipe online, I think it’s called focaccia?” You said as you exited the bakery “I’ll try my hand at it tomorrow.”

“I am sure it would be perfect. We can use it to make sandwiches.” He smiled at your enthusiasm, carrying the conversation toward what to include in the following week’s work bentos.

Your eyes wandered a bit, gasping in excitement when you noticed a new stationery shop in the square, which Nanami gladly led you two to, entering the store with the tune of a small bell’s jingle. You were browsing their sticker collection when Nanami’s phone buzzed in his pocket.

His eyebrows knit at the intrusion, and his finger immediately went to reject the call, wanting to focus all his attention on you. But you, noticing the caller ID insisted on him picking up the video call. He turned away from you and pressed the green button.

“Nanamiiiiiiiiiiiin” Yuji’s voice greeted loudly, with a wide grin pulling at his lips, causing Nanami to wince slightly at the boy’s energy. “Fushiguro you owe me, see? He actually picked up!” He snickered, flipping the camera towards a scowling Megumi.

Nobara peered from behind Yuji, gripping onto his shoulder and pulling at it roughly so she could see the screen better “Oh! Are you in Roppongi!?” she exclaimed, immediately recognizing the surroundings. Yuji’s own eyes went wide, as he brought the phone closer to his face “Oooooh, Nanami-san is enjoying himself without us!” the boy added.

Nanami grunted lightly, raising an eyebrow at his students’ shenanigans “If you all don’t have anything to say, I’m hanging up,” he announced.

You snickered lightly at the scenario unfolding before you, but accidentally dropped a roll of washi tape you had been examining. It rolled towards Nanami’s feet and before you could bend down to pick it up, your man beat you to it, causing you to inadvertently come into view on the video call.

“Is that Y/N-san??” Nobara asked, catching a glimpse of your face “You look so pretty today!” she said, and Yuji greeted you enthusiastically. “I told y’all not to call. See, they’re probably on a date.” Megumi scolded his mates, lips pressed together.

You waved at the group, Nanami moving aside so you took most of the screen. “Hi everyone, I hope you’ve all been enjoying your break,” you said, the melody of your voice prompting them to go on about their summer break activities.

You chuckled when they explained their antics, revealing that they had grown bored and bet on which one of their teachers would pick up the phone off-duty. Surprisingly, even the ever-available Ichiji had turned off his phone, causing the students to almost lose all hope.

Nanami watched your face as you effortlessly conversed with his students, his initial irritation easing, replaced by a fond look. You eventually waved your goodbyes, not wanting to neglect your date.

“Sorry for interrupting,” Megumi said sheepishly. “I’ll send you a picture of me trying on that shade!” Nobara added. “You should try the revolving sushi! Byeeee!” Yuji waved off, before cutting the call.

“They completely forgot I was even here,” Nanami commented, slipping his phone back into his pocket. You chuckled at his words, your hand finding his as you softly intertwined your fingers.

“Shall we get the kids some souvenirs?” You asked, tilting your head as you looked up at your lover. He melted under your gaze, a small smile gracing his features as he brought your hand to his lips. How could he ever say no to you? “Of course my love.” You did not realize just how weak this man was for you.